Vascular-water-exchange MRI (VEXI) enables the detection of subtle AXR alterations in Alzheimer's disease without MRI contrast agent, which may relate to BBB integrity
Yifan Zhang,
Yue Wang,
Zhaoqing Li,
Zejun Wang,
Juange Cheng,
Xiaoyan Bai,
Yi-Cheng Hsu,
Yi Sun,
Shiping Li,
Jiong Shi,
Binbin Sui,
Ruiliang Bai
Affiliations
Yifan Zhang
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Affiliated Sir Run Shaw Hospital AND Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Yue Wang
National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
Zhaoqing Li
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Affiliated Sir Run Shaw Hospital AND Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Zejun Wang
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Affiliated Sir Run Shaw Hospital AND Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Juange Cheng
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Affiliated Sir Run Shaw Hospital AND Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Xiaoyan Bai
Tiantan Neuroimaging Center of Excellence, China National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing, China; Department of Radiology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing Neurosurgical Institute, Beijing, China
Yi-Cheng Hsu
MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthcare, Shanghai, China
Yi Sun
MR Collaboration, Siemens Healthcare, Shanghai, China
Shiping Li
National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
Jiong Shi
National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Corresponding author: Dr. Jiong Shi: Department of Neurology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 119, South Fourth Ring West Road, Fengtai District, Beijing, China, 100070, Tel. +86-10-59978350; Fax +86-10-59973383.
Binbin Sui
National Clinical Research Center for Neurological Diseases, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China; Corresponding author: Dr. Binbin Sui: No.119, West Road of South 4th Ring Road, Fengtai District, Beijing 100070 China. Tel.: 86-10-59975392.
Ruiliang Bai
Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation of the Affiliated Sir Run Shaw Hospital AND Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering of Education Ministry, College of Biomedical Engineering and Instrument Science, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; MOE Frontier Science Center for Brain Science and Brain-machine Integration, School of Brain Science and Brain Medicine, Zhejiang University; Corresponding author: Dr. Ruiliang Bai; 268 Kaixuan Road, South Central Building, Room 708, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, 310027. Phone: 0571-8697112.
Abstracts: Blood-brain barrier (BBB) impairment is an important pathophysiological process in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of AD. However, most current neuroimaging methods assessing BBB function need the injection of exogenous contrast agents (or tracers), which limits the application of these methods in a large population. In this study, we aim to explore the feasibility of vascular water exchange MRI (VEXI), a diffusion-MRI-based method proposed to assess the BBB permeability to water molecules without using a contrast agent, in the detection of the BBB breakdown in AD. We tested VEXI on a 3T MRI scanner on three groups: AD patients (AD group), mild cognitive impairment (MCI) patients due to AD (MCI group), and the age-matched normal cognition subjects (NC group). Interestingly, we find that the apparent water exchange across the BBB (AXRBBB) measured by VEXI shows higher values in MCI compared with NC, and this higher AXRBBB happens specifically in the hippocampus. This increase in AXRBBB value gets larger and extends to more brain regions (medial orbital frontal cortex and thalamus) from MCI group to the AD group. Furthermore, we find that the AXRBBB values of these three regions is correlated significantly with the impairment of respective cognitive domains independent of age, sex and education. These results suggest VEXI is a promising method to assess the BBB breakdown in AD.
