Project description:
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease involving the motor system, which often leads to the death of the Patient within a few years. The neuronal disease mechanisms of ALS are often described based on animal models or investigations of dead human brain tissue. Here, the team used novel methodology, ultra-high field magnetic resonance imaging (7T-MRI), to gain a more precise insight on the acute disease state of the primary motor cortex (M1) in the living patient as well as its development over time. They show that a single 7T-MRI scan can be used to detect affected brain tissue in different layers of M1, and uncovers its development over time. The team could use this data to develop individualized disease profiles of M1 in living patients, which shows the potential of ultra-high field MRI for personalized diagnostics and therapy.
Publication:
Northall A, Doehler J, Weber M, Tellez I, Petri S, Prudlo J, Vielhaber S, Schreiber S, Kuehn E (2024) Multimodal layer modelling reveals in vivo pathology in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Brain 147(3):1087-1099.
Paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10907094/
Submitting the Paper of the Month:
Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung is using the series “Paper of the Month” to report in an exemplary and hot-off-the-press style on the outstanding work being done by the scientists it supports. We regularly present publications which have recently appeared in especially renowned journals, have emerged from foundation funding and been given appropriate acknowledgment. This is done in the respective categories “Original Paper” and “Review”. In the case of each of these publications, the first author and/or senior author are being funded by the foundation.
We invite all project managers, fellowship recipients and members of graduate study programs to send their work in accordance with the stated criteria as proposal for Paper of the Month to Ms. Anne Asschenfeldt (a.asschenfeldt@ekfs.de).
More Paper of the Month can be found here.
