/GD-TRACKER/ A SOFTWARE FOR BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER PERMEABILITY ASSESSMENT

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Epilepsy is chronic neurological disease characterized by occurrence of spontaneous recurrent seizures affecting approximately 1% of people. One of the most common causes of epilepsy in adults is a stroke. The precise mechanism of development of vascular epilepsy is not known, and thus no reliable biomarker of postischemic epileptogenesis currently exists. Blood-brain barrier (BBB) impairment is phenomenon observed in several pathologies including stroke after which epilepsy often develops. Blood components such as albumin or thrombin have been experimentally shown to possess the capacity to increase excitability which results in seizures and epileptogenesis. We hypothesize that severity of the BBB breakdown during first weeks after the stroke can be used as a biomarker of postischemic epileptogenesis. This paper describes free MATLAB based software /Gd-Tracker/ and methodology developed for assessment of BBB permeability from magnetic resonance (MR) scans based on statistical voxel to voxel comparison of sequences with and without Gd-DTPA contrast. This software allows to evaluate extent and magnitude of impaired BBB region and thus serve as a tool for visualization and quantification of BBB breakdown.

Keywords:
blood-brain barrier, MRI, Gd-DTPA, permeability, stroke, epileptogenesis, MATLAB, freeware, Gd-Tracker

Autoři: David Kala ^1,2; Jan Svoboda ¹; Andrej Litvinec ¹; Antonín Pošusta ¹; Jiří Lisý ³; Vlastimil Šulc ⁴; Aleš Tomek ⁴; Petr Marusič ⁴; Přemysl Jiruška ¹; Jakub Otáhal ¹
Působiště autorů: Institute of Physiology Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic ¹; Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic ²; Department of Radiology, Second Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and Motol University Hospital, Czech Republic ³; Department of Neurology, Second Faculty of Medicine, Charles University and Motol University Hospital, Czech Republic ⁴
Vyšlo v časopise: Lékař a technika - Clinician and Technology No. 2, 2017, 47, 43-48
Kategorie: Původní práce

Souhrn

Keywords:
blood-brain barrier, MRI, Gd-DTPA, permeability, stroke, epileptogenesis, MATLAB, freeware, Gd-Tracker

Zdroje

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