BIAGI , Laura

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurological disorder that entails degeneration of both upper and lower motor neurons. The primary motor cortex (M1) in patients with upper motor neuron (UMN) impairment is pronouncedly hypointense in Magnetic Resonance (MR) T2* contrast. In the present study, 3D gradient-recalled multi-echo...

PURPOSE: To evaluate the anatomy of the substantia nigra (SN) in healthy subjects by performing 7-T magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the SN, and to prospectively define the accuracy of 7-T MR imaging in distinguishing Parkinson disease (PD) patients from healthy subjects on an individual basis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The 7-T MR imaging...

The current availability of Magnetic Resonance (MR) systems that operate at ultra high magnetic field (≥ 7 Tesla) allows the representation of anatomical structures at sub-millimeter resolution. Interestingly, small structures of the brain, such as the subfields of the hippocampus, the inner structures of the basal ganglia and of the brainstem...

Purpose: To predict local and global specific absorption rate (SAR) in individual subjects. Materials and Methods: SAR was simulated for a head volume coil for two imaging sequences: axial T1-weighted "zero" time-of-echo (ZTE) sequence, sagittal T2-weighted fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR). Two head models (one adult, one child) were...

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are widely used in the treatment of central nervous system tumors and acute lymphocytic leukemia even in the pediatric population. However, such treatments run the risk of a broad spectrum of cognitive and neurological deficits. Even though the correlation with cognitive decline is still not clear,...

Magnetic Resonance (MR) Imaging is a valuable tool in the diagnosis and monitoring of various musculoskeletal pathologies. New Ultra-High Field (UHF) 7 T MRI systems, with their enhanced Signal-to- Noise Ratio, may offer increased image quality in terms of spatial resolution and/or shorter scanning time compared to lower field systems. However,...

Background The brainstem contains grey matter nuclei and white matter tracts to be identified in clinical practice. The small size and the low contrast among them make their in vivo visualisation challenging using conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences at high magnetic field strengths. Combining higher spatial resolution,...

Objectives This study aimed to assess the performance of a "Silent" zero time of echo (ZTE) sequence for T1-weighted brain imaging using a 7 T MRI system. Methods The Silent sequence was evaluated qualitatively by two neuroradiologists, as well as quantitatively in terms of tissue contrast, homogeneity, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and acoustic...

Introduction: Susceptibility-weighted imaging of the substantia nigra (SN) both at 7 and 3 Tesla (T) has shown high accuracy in distinguishing patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and healthy subjects (HS). Patients with rapid eye movement (REM) behavior disorder (RBD) can develop synucleinopathies, and such risk is higher with dopamine...