Cerebral edema is characterized by fluid accumulation, and the glymphatic system (GS) plays a pivotal role in regulating fluid transport. Using the Tenecteplase system, magnesium salt of salvianolic acid B/ginsenoside Rg1 (SalB/Rg1) was injected intravenously into mice 4.5 h after middle cerebral artery occlusion and once every 24 h for the following 72 h. GS function was assessed by Evans blue imaging, near-infrared fluorescence region II (NIR-II) imaging, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). SalB/Rg1 had significant effects on reducing the infarct volume and hemorrhagic transformation score, improving neurobehavioral function, and protecting tissue structure, especially inhibiting cerebral edema. Meanwhile, the influx/efflux drainage of GS was enhanced by SalB/Rg1 according to NIR-II imaging and MRI. SalB/Rg1 inhibited matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) activity, reduced cleaved β-dystroglycan (β-DG), and stabilized aquaporin-4 (AQP4) polarity, which was verified by colocalization with CD31. Our findings indicated that SalB/Rg1 treatment enhances GS function and attenuates cerebral edema, accompanying the regulation of the MMP9/β-DG/AQP4 pathway.
Animals ; Ginsenosides/administration & dosage* ; Brain Edema/etiology* ; Male ; Benzofurans/administration & dosage* ; Glymphatic System/diagnostic imaging* ; Mice ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery/drug therapy* ; Aquaporin 4/metabolism* ; Disease Models, Animal ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 9/metabolism* ; Neuroprotective Agents/pharmacology* ; Depsides

In animal experiments, ischemic stroke is usually induced through middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO), and quality assessment of this procedure is crucial. However, an accurate assessment method based on 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET) is still lacking. The difficulty lies in the inconsistent preprocessing pipeline, biased intensity normalization, or unclear spatiotemporal uptake of FDG. Here, we propose an image feature-based protocol to assess the quality of the procedure using a 3D scale-invariant feature transform and support vector machine. This feature-based protocol provides a convenient, accurate, and reliable tool to assess the quality of the MCAO procedure in FDG PET studies. Compared with existing approaches, the proposed protocol is fully quantitative, objective, automatic, and bypasses the intensity normalization step. An online interface was constructed to check images and obtain assessment results.
Animals ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery/diagnostic imaging* ; Positron-Emission Tomography/methods*

Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) is currently the most sensitive technique to diagnose early ischemic stroke. DWI signal hyperintensity is usually considered to suggest irreversible infarct core, but recent studies demonstrated that DWI hyperintensity signal could be reversible on small embolic lesions. Herein we present a case in a 63-year-old male patient, who was admitted to the emergency department with altered mental status and complaint of weakness in the left arm and leg 6.8 h prior to the admission. Emergency cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and angiography (MRA) revealed occlusion of his right middle cerebral artery (MCA) and large lesions on DWI. The patient underwent intra-artery thrombectomy after evaluation in spite of the large volume of the DWI lesions up to 91.5 mL at the baseline. His right MCA was recanalized at 8.5 h from symptom onset. One week after the procedure, the patient showed reduced DWI lesion volume to 11.58 mL. In this case we observed the reversibility of a large lesion of the anterior artery circulation presenting with hyperintensity on DWI, suggesting that the clinical implication of DWI hyperintensity should be interpreted with caution, and a large volume of baseline DWI hyperintensity may not be a contraindication to thrombectomy. This conclusion, however, awaits further validation by future large-scale randomized controlled trials.
Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Humans ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery ; diagnostic imaging ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Stroke ; Thrombectomy

Stroke at the acute stage is a major cause of disability in adults, and is associated with dysfunction of brain networks. However, the mechanisms underlying changes in brain connectivity in stroke are far from fully elucidated. In the present study, we investigated brain metabolism and metabolic connectivity in a rat ischemic stroke model of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) at the acute stage using F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography. Voxel-wise analysis showed decreased metabolism mainly in the ipsilesional hemisphere, and increased metabolism mainly in the contralesional cerebellum. We used further metabolic connectivity analysis to explore the brain metabolic network in MCAO. Compared to sham controls, rats with MCAO showed most significantly reduced nodal and local efficiency in the ipsilesional striatum. In addition, the MCAO group showed decreased metabolic central connection of the ipsilesional striatum with the ipsilesional cerebellum, ipsilesional hippocampus, and bilateral hypothalamus. Taken together, the present study demonstrated abnormal metabolic connectivity in rats at the acute stage of ischemic stroke, which might provide insight into clinical research.
Acute Disease ; Animals ; Brain ; diagnostic imaging ; metabolism ; Brain Mapping ; Disease Models, Animal ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Glucose ; metabolism ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery ; diagnostic imaging ; metabolism ; Male ; Neural Pathways ; diagnostic imaging ; metabolism ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; Radiopharmaceuticals ; Random Allocation ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of functional metabolism has been widely used to investigate functional recovery and to evaluate therapeutic efficacy after stroke. The voxel intensity of a PET image is the most important indicator of cellular activity, but is affected by other factors such as the basal metabolic ratio of each subject. In order to locate dysfunctional regions accurately, intensity normalization by a scale factor is a prerequisite in the data analysis, for which the global mean value is most widely used. However, this is unsuitable for stroke studies. Alternatively, a specified scale factor calculated from a reference region is also used, comprising neither hyper- nor hypo-metabolic voxels. But there is no such recognized reference region for stroke studies. Therefore, we proposed a totally data-driven automatic method for unbiased scale factor generation. This factor was generated iteratively until the residual deviation of two adjacent scale factors was reduced by < 5%. Moreover, both simulated and real stroke data were used for evaluation, and these suggested that our proposed unbiased scale factor has better sensitivity and accuracy for stroke studies.
Animals ; Computer Simulation ; Disease Models, Animal ; Female ; Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery ; diagnostic imaging ; Male ; Positron-Emission Tomography ; methods ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Stroke ; diagnostic imaging

PURPOSE: Although time-of-flight (TOF)-magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) can clearly depict intracranial arteries, the arterial flow of middle cerebral artery (MCA) is occasionally not detected. We evaluated this phenomenon with reference to cerebrovascular dynamics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Seventeen patients with suspected occlusion of MCA or internal carotid artery on TOF-MRA were enrolled. All patients underwent CT angiography (CTA) and quantitative cerebral blood flow (CBF) examination for measurement of resting CBF and cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR). Depending on appearance, patients were categorized into three groups. Group A (n=6) had MCA delineation on both MRA and CTA, while groups B (n=6) and C (n=5) had no signal on MRA, but Group B had a MCA delineation on CTA.
Acetazolamide/administration & dosage ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Carotid Artery, Internal/physiopathology ; Cerebrovascular Circulation ; Computed Tomography Angiography ; Female ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Angiography ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Middle Cerebral Artery/diagnostic imaging

A 61-year-old female presented with 4 years history of left-sided hemifacial spasm. Head MRI and angiography indicated left vertebral artery dissecting aneurysm which compressed ipsilateral cranial nerves Ⅶ and Ⅷ. Microvascular decompression was performed. The dissecting aneurysm was pushed apart and the distal part of the parent artery was adhered to the dura on the petrosum. The compressed nerves were totally decompressed. The symptom of facial spasm was completely resolved immediately after surgery and did not recur during 6 months of follow up.
Cerebral Angiography ; Facial Nerve ; pathology ; Female ; Hemifacial Spasm ; surgery ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Microvascular Decompression Surgery ; Middle Aged ; Nerve Compression Syndromes ; diagnosis ; etiology ; surgery ; Vertebral Artery Dissection ; diagnostic imaging ; surgery ; Vestibulocochlear Nerve ; pathology

The histopathological features of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) and superficial temporal artery (STA) from moyamoya disease (MMD) and their relationships with gender, age, angiography stage were explored. The causes and the clinical significance of vasculopathy of STA were also discussed. The clinical data and specimens of MCA and STA from 30 MMD patients were collected. Twelve samples of MCA and STA from non-MMD patients served as control group. Histopathological examination was then performed by measuring the thickness of intima and media, and statistical analysis was conducted. The MCA and STA specimens from MMD group had apparently thicker intima and thinner media than those from the control group. There was no significant pathological difference between the hemorrhage group and non-hemorrhage group, and between the males and females in MMD patients. Neither the age nor the digital subtraction angiography (DSA) stage was correlated with the thickness of intima in MCA and STA. MMD is a systemic vascular disease involving both intracranial and extracranial vessels. Preoperative external carotid arteriography, especially super-selective arteriography of the STA, benefits the selection of donor vessel.
Adult ; Angiography ; Case-Control Studies ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Middle Cerebral Artery ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Moyamoya Disease ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; surgery ; Temporal Arteries ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Tunica Intima ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology

OBJECTIVETo explore the pattern of variations in middle cerebral artery peak systolic velocity (MCA PSV) and cardiothoracic ratio (CTR) during early pregnancy, establish their reference ranges and explore their correlation with the crown-rump length (CRL).

METHODSA total of 522 pregnant women with normal findings in antenatal examinations underwent routine color Doppler ultrasound examination to collect the data of MCA PSV, CTR and CRL. The reference ranges of MCA PSV and CTR for different CRL levels were established, and the correlation of MCA PSV and CTR with CRL was analyzed.

RESULTSDuring the first trimester, MCA PSV and CRL showed a moderate positive correlation with a correlation coefficient of 0.426 (P<0.001), while CTR and CRL showed no significant correlation (0.168, P<0.001). The reference range of MCA PSV was 14.35 (14.08-14.62) cm/s and that of CTR was 0.34 (0.33-0.34) during early pregnancy.

CONCLUSIONColor Doppler ultrasound is a safe and feasible modality to assess fetal MCA PSV and CTR for detecting fetal growth abnormalities in early pregnancy. The established reference ranges of MCA PSV and CTR offer a clinical theoretical basis for detecting α-thalassemia in early pregnancy.

Blood Flow Velocity ; Crown-Rump Length ; Female ; Fetal Diseases ; diagnostic imaging ; Humans ; Middle Cerebral Artery ; physiology ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Trimester, First ; Reference Values ; Systole ; Ultrasonography, Doppler, Color ; Ultrasonography, Prenatal

PURPOSE: To investigate the clinical and morphological characteristics in relation to risk of bifurcation intracranial aneurysm rupture. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data from 202 consecutive patients with 219 bifurcation aneurysms (129 ruptured and 90 unruptured) managed at the authors' facility between August 2011 and July 2014 were retrospectively reviewed. Based on their clinical records and CT angiographic findings, the ability of risk factors to predict aneurysm rupture was assessed using statistical methods. RESULTS: Age, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and cerebral atherosclerosis were negatively correlated with aneurysm rupture. Aneurysms located in the middle cerebral artery, daughter artery ratio, lateral angle ratio (LA ratio), and neck width were negatively correlated with rupture. Aneurysms located in the anterior communicating artery, irregularity, with daughter sac, depth, width, maximum size, aspect ratio (AR), depth-to-width ratio, and bottleneck factor were significantly and positively correlated with rupture. Binary logistic regression model revealed that irregular shape [odds ratio (OR) 6.598] and AR (OR 3.507) strongly increased the risk of bifurcation aneurysm rupture, while age (OR 0.434), cerebral atherosclerosis (OR 0.125), neck width (OR 0.771), and LA ratio (OR 0.267) were negatively correlated with rupture (p<0.05). Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed the threshold values of AR and LA ratio to be 1.18 and 1.50, respectively. CONCLUSION: Age (≥60 yr), cerebral atherosclerosis, and aneurysms with a larger neck width and larger LA ratio are protective factors against bifurcation aneurysm rupture. An aneurysm with an irregular shape and an increased AR reflect the greater likelihood of a rupture.
Adult ; Age Factors ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Aneurysm, Ruptured/*diagnostic imaging ; Cerebral Angiography/*methods ; *Computed Tomography Angiography ; Developmental Disabilities ; Diabetic Angiopathies/complications ; Female ; Humans ; Hypertension/complications ; Intracranial Aneurysm/*diagnostic imaging ; Intracranial Arteriosclerosis/complications ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Middle Cerebral Artery/diagnostic imaging ; Odds Ratio ; Protective Factors ; ROC Curve ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors