A multi-scale imaging approach to cortical pathology v1.0
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Making the Invisible Visible: a Multi-Scale Imaging Approach to Detect and Characterise Cortical Pathology
IRAS ID
338070
Contact name
Derek Jones
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cardiff University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, 29 days
Research summary
Modern brain imaging techniques have limited sensitivity to detect subtle abnormalities within the brain’s outer layer (cortex) or to provide detailed information on the underlying brain tissue cell structure. Recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) physics have the potential to overcome these limitations, with ultra-strong magnets able to generate much higher-resolution images. We are yet to use this technology to fully investigate the brain’s cortex, which is involved in many diseases including epilepsy, dementia and multiple sclerosis.
This study aims to demonstrate our ability to use MRI to detect abnormalities within the brain cortex invisible with conventional techniques and provide information on the cell structures that would otherwise require invasive biopsy to obtain. We will focus on patients with drug-resistant epilepsy caused by localised abnormalities within the cortex called focal cortical dysplasia.
We will first perform advanced MRI scans on healthy volunteers. This will allow us to learn what variation we normally see when using ultra-strong MRI magnets. We will use this information to train machine-learning techniques to automatically detect abnormalities seen with these advanced MRI scans.
We then want to learn how the MRI signals relate to the underlying structure of the brain tissue. We will perform these same advanced MRI scans on patients with drug-resistant epilepsy where we can see local abnormalities within the brain cortex. Following epilepsy surgery performed as part of standard clinical care to remove these abnormalities, we will perform experimental imaging on samples of this brain tissue to provide detailed information on cell structure.
Finally, we will image epilepsy patients with no abnormalities visible within the cortex on normal clinical MRI scans to try to predict areas of abnormal tissue.
Ultimately, detecting abnormalities invisible with standard clinical MRI may increase the number of patients suitable for epilepsy surgery and allow more accurate investigations to improve surgical outcomes.REC name
Wales REC 2
REC reference
24/WA/0078
Date of REC Opinion
3 Apr 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion