O. Khan, M.R. Del Bigio* Department of Pathology, University of Manitoba Hydrocephalus is a common neurological condition characterized by obstruction of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow leading to enlargement of CSF-containing ventricular cavities in the brain. The use of pharmacological drugs to reduce brain damage in immature (5 – 7 weeks) hydrocephalic rats have been investigated in our lab with various outcomes (Del Bigio 2002). Magnesium sulphate and nimodipine have shown promising results with improvements in behavioral outcomes and reduced damage in the white matter (Del Bigio 2001, Khan 2003). However, shunting delay is more likely to be a clinical problem in very premature infants. Hence our desire to study the effects of these agents in neonatal rats with brains more comparable to those of 24-26 week humans. Rats were injected with kaolin on postnatal day 1 and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on day 7 to assess ventricle size. On postnatal day 7 osmotic mini pumps with MgSO4, MgCl2 ...

Chimpanzees are the evolutionally closest animal to humans. Their brain sizes are about three times smaller than the brain sizes of humans. However, those sizes of chimpanzees are almost same as the ancient hominoid Australopithecus africanus. The macro-anatomical structures and shapes of their brains are similar between chimpanzees and humans. Thus, in order to reveal the evolutional process of the human brains, it must be helpful to understand the development of the brains in chimpanzee infants and to compare those with the development of the brains in human infants. We used the 3 dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (3D-MRI) techniques to study the brain of 4 chimpanzee infants. We studied 3 chimpanzee infants for 5 years and one for 2 years. The brain size increase was about 40% from 4 month to 24 month old. Among 4 lobes of cortices, volume increase in the frontal cortex was largest. These developmental processes were similar to the developmental processes of the human infants although the relative ...

Studying subcortical structures such as the internal capsule and thalamus in non-human primates has proven to be extremely difficult and requires extensive planning. There currently exist very few anatomical atlases and landmarks to provide accurate coo...

Aging increases the risk to develop neurodegenerative diseases, most importantly Alzheimer’s disease. Understanding mechanisms and strategies to prevent disease and modify its course are of uttermost importance. A proteome-wide association study identif...

Identifying and evaluating imaging markers in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) remains a major challenge for the effective use of MRI as a clinical tool. This is evident with diffusion MRI, which can detect subtle abnormalities in mild TBI (mTBI). While ex ...

Introduction: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neuro-developmental disorder. The main goal of using the task-based functional MRI in ASD is to localize task-evoked blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) effects in the brain and subsequently, to analyze ...

Study of human partial trisomies has indicated that gene(s) from the DCR-1 region (CBR1-ERG) should be involved in facial and hand features and in mental retardation observed in Down syndrome. Smith et al have constructed low copy number transgenic mice containing four different human yeast artificial chromosomes that together covered approximately 2Mb (ie 80%) of DCR-1; this panel constitutes an in vivo library for phenotype screening. We carried out a neuropathological study of these transgenic lines and found that the integration of two of these YACs, 230-e8 and 152-f7 caused morphogenetic changes: YAC 230-e8 mice showed an abnormal cerebellar folial pattern, a decrease in transverse diameter of the cerebellum and an increase in cortical cell density; YAC 152-f7 mice showed an increase in brain weight and a clear learning impairment. The brain weight increase was further explored by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): this technique allows to follow brain changes along animal development. Interestin...

Bone marrow contains a population of pluripotent cells that have the capacity to migrate towards a lesion and induce or facilitate site-dependent differentiation in response to enviromental signals. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides a noninvasive method for studying the fate of transplanted cells in vivo. Rat bone marrow stromal cells (MSCs) were isolated by their adherence to plastic, expanded in vitro and labeled with superparamagnetic nanoparticles. After the induction of a balloon-induced spinal cord compression lesion, the rats received intravenously either MSCs (2 million cells, 7 days post-injury) or granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF; 25-30 micrograms from day 7 to 11 post-injury). Lesioned animals grafted with MSCs or treated with G-CSF had higher scores in BBB testing than did control animals. Furthermore, they showed the recovery of sensitivity in their hind limbs using a plantar test. In MR images, the lesion populated by grafted cells appeared as a dark hypointense area. Prus...

The fornix, the white matter pathway in the primate brain that connects the extended hippocampal system to the limbic thalamus, mammillary bodies, and frontal cortex, has a critical role in episodic memory, as revealed by monkey lesion (Gaffan, 1994; Bu...

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), defined by deficits in social functioning, communication, and restricted interests/repetitive behaviors is a serious psychiatric disorder of childhood. Previous neuroimaging studies using task-based functional magnetic re...