New imaging method could facilitate future prognosis of concussion through MRI — Concussion Alliance

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By Camila Smith-Donald. This text was initially printed within the 2/1/24 version of our Concussion Replace publication; please take into account subscribing.

In a latest study, Lily Li-Wen Wang et al. discovered that macrophage-adhering GLAMs can be utilized to determine the presence of gentle traumatic mind accidents (mTBIs) that don’t present up on customary MRI mind scans. GLAMs (gadolinium-loaded anisotropic micropatches) are made of ordinary MRI distinction brokers (gadolinium) mixed with immune cells referred to as macrophages. Macrophages naturally goal areas of irritation, permitting GLAMs to focus on injury within the mind that may go undetected on a regular MRI.

This growth, printed in Science Translational Medication, is welcome in a discipline the place correct prognosis has been a longtime problem; at present, as many as 90% of mTBI instances could go undiagnosed, in keeping with an article by Lindsay Brownell printed by the Wyss Institute. GLAMs reap the benefits of modifications brought on by mTBI within the choroid plexus, the mind space that regulates the entry of white blood cells (like macrophages) into the mind via the blood-brain barrier. When GLAMs are injected into the bloodstream of a possible mTBI affected person, they’ll go via the blood-brain barrier to focus on websites of harm, the place they’ll then present up on MRI scans. 

Up to now, the GLAMs have been examined in mice and pigs, with promising outcomes. Along with their imaging benefits, GLAMs seem safer for the kidneys than different gadolinium-based imaging brokers and require a a lot decrease dosage to be efficient. Though this imaging technique is significantly better at figuring out when there may be irritation, it doesn’t present spatial specificity in finding areas of neuronal injury after mTBI.

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