brain imaging Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Brain Imaging + Virtual Reality Shows Promise for Effectively Managing Cancer Pain

The AHA! Team — Wed, 14 May 2025 05:38:10 +0000

Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center via Newswise – Roswell Park-led study takes a significant step toward relief without opioids Highlights Advanced brain imaging gauges pain objectively Virtual-reality relaxation program found clinically effective for pain relief More than 75% of patients who used VR reported a decrease in pain A clinical research study Newswise — BUFFALO, N.Y. — A clinical research study led by Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has identified a way to objectively measure pain in cancer patients and treat it effectively without opioids. Published in Scientific Reports, the study advances the goal of better managing cancer pain using a non-invasive brain imaging technology and a non-drug treatment that incorporates virtual reality (VR). The project was led by principal investigator Somayeh Besharat Shafiei, PhD, Assistant Professor of Oncology in Roswell Park’s Department of Urology, and co-investigator Oscar de Leon-Casasola, MD, Chief of Pain Medicine at Roswell Park, and included team members from Roswell Park and the University of Guelph in Ontario. A new strategy They propose and assess a new strategy combining brain imaging with the use of functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) — a way to gauge the severity of pain using a head cap fitted with optical sensors — and the use of virtual reality to provide pain relief. All participants wore fNIRS head caps to record brain activity by measuring changes in blood oxygenation and deoxygenation. This made it possible for the researchers to identify brain-based biomarkers that distinguish between three levels of pain: no/mild, moderate and severe. Some participants also used VR headsets equipped with software that allowed them to explore realistic underwater scenes. The researchers believe VR may influence a person’s perception of pain by modulating pain-related neural circuits in the regions of the brain. The study enrolled 147 participants, including: 13 healthy patients, who wore fNIRS head caps for 10 minutes 93 cancer patients experiencing pain, who wore fNIRS head caps for 10 minutes 41 cancer patients experiencing pain, who wore fNIRS head caps and VR headsets for a total of 29 minutes —10 minutes before VR, nine minutes during VR and 10 minutes after VR Of the pain-afflicted cancer patients who used the VR program, more than 75% self-reported a decrease in pain — indicating a noticeable improvement well beyond the clinically relevant threshold of 30%. Results of the brain imaging suggest that VR has an effect on both the cognitive and emotional aspects of pain. “This study signals a new era in precision medicine where neuroimaging and digital therapeutics revolutionize pain assessment and treatment,” says Dr. Besharat Shafiei, first author of the study, who notes that an estimated 60-80% of cancer pain is not properly managed. “This combination therapy could reshape clinical pain management protocols, reduce reliance on opioids, and improve the quality of life for millions of cancer patients worldwide.” To read the original article click here.

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Scientists Develop Simple Blood Test for Early Detection of Alzheimer’s Disease

AHA Publisher — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 07:00:20 +0000

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology via EurekAlert – An international research team led by HKUST has developed a simple but robust blood test from Chinese patient data for early detection and screening of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) for the first time, with an accuracy level of over 96%. Currently, doctors mainly rely on cognitive tests to diagnose a person with AD. Besides clinical assessment, brain imaging and lumbar puncture are the two most commonly used medical procedures to detect changes in the brain caused by AD. However, these methods are expensive, invasive, and frequently unavailable in many countries. Now, a team led by Prof. Nancy IP, Vice-President for Research and Development at HKUST, has identified 19 out of the 429 plasma proteins associated with AD to form a biomarker panel representative of an “AD signature” in the blood. Based on this panel, the team has developed a scoring system that distinguishes AD patients from healthy people with more than 96% accuracy. This system can also differentiate among the early, intermediate, and late stages of AD, and can be used to monitor the progression of the disease over time. These exciting findings have led to the development of a high-performance, blood-based test for AD, and may also pave the way to novel therapeutic treatments for the disease. “With the advancement of ultrasensitive blood-based protein detection technology, we have developed a simple, noninvasive, and accurate diagnostic solution for AD, which will greatly facilitate population-scale screening and staging of the disease,” said Prof. Nancy Ip, Morningside Professor of Life Science and the Director of the State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience at HKUST. The work was conducted in collaboration with researchers at University College London and clinicians in local hospitals including the Prince of Wales Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The discovery was made using the proximity extension assay (PEA) – a cutting-edge ultrasensitive and high-throughput protein measurement technology, to examine the levels of over 1,000 proteins in the plasma of AD patients in Hong Kong. As the most comprehensive study of blood proteins in AD patients to date, the work has recently been published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, and has also been featured and actively discussed on different scholarly exchange platforms on AD research such as Alzforum. AD, which affects over 50 million people worldwide, involves the dysfunction and loss of brain cells. Its symptoms include progressive memory loss as well as impaired movement, reasoning, and judgment. While patients often only seek medical attention and are diagnosed when they have memory problems, AD affects the brain at least 10-20 years before symptoms appear. To read the original article click here.

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Seismic Imaging Technology Could Deliver Finely Detailed Images of the Human Brain

AHA Publisher — Fri, 13 Mar 2020 07:00:22 +0000

Imperial College London via EurekAlert – The Imperial College London and UCL researchers say their proof-of-concept study, published today in npj Digital Medicine, paves the way for the development of high-fidelity clinical imaging of the human brain that could be superior to existing technology. Unlike existing brain imaging methods like MRI, CT and PET scanning, the technology could be applied to imaging any patient, and could be suitable for the continuous monitoring of high-dependency patients. It could be delivered by a relatively small device, which would also potentially make it portable via ambulance and enable fast investigation in advance of arrival to hospital. The researchers are confident the technology will be safe as sound waves are already used for ultrasound scanning and this technology uses similar sound intensities. Ultrasound cannot easily penetrate through bone, whereas the new device, which is designed to be worn like a helmet, is able to overcome this barrier. The new approach is of special value in patients investigated for stroke – the second most common cause of death and most common cause of adult neurological disability – where rapid, universally applicable, high-fidelity imaging is essential. Lead author Dr Lluís Guasch, of Imperial’s Department of Earth Science and Engineering, said: “An imaging technique that has already revolutionised one field – seismic imaging – now has the potential to revolutionise another – brain imaging.” Professor Bryan Williams Director NIHR UCL Hospitals Biomedical Research Centre, which partly funded the research, said: “This is an extraordinary and novel development in brain imaging which has huge potential to provide accessible brain imaging in routine clinical practice to evaluate the brain in head trauma, stroke and a variety of brain diseases. “If this lives up to its promise it will be a major advance. It is also a fabulous illustration of how the collaboration between engineers and clinicians, using methods from another sphere of science, can bring ground-breaking innovation into medical care.” Transcending Disciplines Earth scientists use seismic data and a computational technique called full waveform inversion (FWI) to map the inside of the earth. Seismic data from earthquake detectors (seismometers) are plugged into FWI algorithms that extract 3D images of the Earth’s crust that can be used to predict earthquakes and search for reservoirs of oil and gas. Now Imperial researchers have adapted this approach to medical imaging, developing a method that uses sound waves with the ultimate aim of producing high-resolution images of the brain. They built a helmet lined with an array of acoustic transducers that each sends sound waves through the skull. The ultrasound energy that propagates through the head is recorded and fed via the helmet into a computer. FWI is then used to analyse the reverberations of the sound throughout the skull, constructing a 3D image of the interior. The researchers tested their helmet on a healthy volunteer and found that the quality of the recorded signals was sufficient for the algorithm to generate a detailed image, and they are confident the scattered energy from the brain will be interpretable. Using computer modelling, they also found they could obtain high-resolution images with sound frequencies low enough to penetrate the skull at safe intensities. They created detailed computer simulations based on the properties of different types of human brain tissue to establish that sound waves would be effective for composing high-resolution images of the brain. Dr Guasch said: “This is the first time FWI has been applied to the task of imaging inside a human skull. FWI is normally used in geophysics to map the structure of the Earth, but our collaborative, multidisciplinary team of earth scientists, bioengineers and neurologists are using it to create a safe, cheap and portable method of generating 3D ultrasound images of the human brain.” Potential Clinical Use Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is generally the best method for obtaining high-resolution images of the brain, and its use is currently essential to the investigation of many neurological disorders including stroke, brain cancer, and brain injury. Nonetheless, MRI requires large, complex, expensive, non-portable machines cooled to three degrees above absolute zero, and it cannot be used on patients for whom the presence of metallic implants or foreign bodies cannot be scrupulously ruled out. This makes emergency use in patients with potentially altered consciousness, such as those suspected of stroke, difficult or impossible. The researchers say that if it proves successful in human trials, their device will overcome these obstacles. Study co-author Professor Parashkev Nachev, of UCL, said: “This is a vivid illustration of the remarkable power of advanced computation in medicine. Combining algorithmic innovation with supercomputing could enable us to retrieve high-resolution images of the brain from safe, relatively simple, well-established physics: the transmission of soundwaves through human tissue. “The practicalities of MRI will always limit its applicability, especially in the acute setting, where timely intervention has the greatest impact. Neurology has been waiting for a new, universally applicable imaging modality for decades: full-waveform inversion could well be the answer.” Next, the researchers will build a new prototype for live imaging of normal human brains as the first step to a device that could be evaluated in clinical contexts. To read the original article click here.

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