Medical Biophysics Commons^™

Development Of Quantitative Molecular Photoacoustic Imaging For Noninvasive Cancer Diagnostics, Cayla Zandbergen

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

Traditional diagnostic imaging provides clinicians with anatomical information that guides both diagnosis and treatment planning; however, once a tumor has progressed enough to be visible, it has often reached an advanced stage. Molecular imaging techniques allow for real-time visualization of chemical and biological processes via imaging of specific biomarkers, which can facilitate detection of malignancies before they become visible. One biomarker of interest is blood oxygen saturation (SO₂) due to its correlation with hypoxia, which is associated with increased tumor malignancy; some studies have also established SO₂ as an independent biomarker of disease progression. Additionally, because cancerous …

Advancement Of A 3d Computational Phantom And Its Age Scaling Methodologies For Retrospective Dose Reconstruction Studies, Aashish Gupta

Dissertations and Theses (Open Access)

We have used a 3D age-scalable computational phantom for over two decades for retrospective dose reconstruction studies of childhood cancer survivors (CCS) treated with 2D historic radiotherapy (RT). However, our phantom and its age scaling functions (ASF) must be updated so that it can be used in studies that include survivors treated with contemporary RT. We aimed to implement our phantom and its age scaling functions in DICOM format and determine the feasibility of applying our ASFs to accurately scale the whole-body CT-based anatomies.

In the implementation study, we developed Python scripts that model the phantom and ASFs in a …

Medical Schools Ignore The Nature Of Consciousness At Great Cost, Anoop Kumar

Journal of Wellness

The essential question of the relationship between consciousness and matter is ignored in medical school curricula, leading to a machine-like view of the human being that contributes to physician burnout and intellectual dissatisfaction. The evidence suggesting that the brain may not be the seat of consciousness is generally ignored to preserve the worldview of the primacy of matter. By investigating new frameworks detailing the nature of consciousness at different levels of hierarchy, we can bring intellectual rigor to a once opaque subject that supports a fundamental reality about our experience: We are human beings, not only human bodies.

Rapid Microscopic Fractional Anisotropy Imaging Via An Optimized Linear Regression Formulation., N J J Arezza, D H Y Tse, C A Baron

Medical Biophysics Publications

Water diffusion anisotropy in the human brain is affected by disease, trauma, and development. Microscopic fractional anisotropy (μFA) is a diffusion MRI (dMRI) metric that can quantify water diffusion anisotropy independent of neuron fiber orientation dispersion. However, there are several different techniques to estimate μFA and few have demonstrated full brain imaging capabilities within clinically viable scan times and resolutions. Here, we present an optimized spherical tensor encoding (STE) technique to acquire μFA directly from the 2nd order cumulant expansion of the powder averaged dMRI signal obtained from direct linear regression (i.e. diffusion kurtosis) which requires fewer powder-averaged signals than …

Current State Of Lgbtqia+ Healthcare, Jessica Vadas

Conference Presentation Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Implications Of The Quantum Dna Model For Information Sciences, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The DNA molecule can be modeled as a quantum logic processor, and this model has been supported by pilot research that experimentally demonstrated non-local communication between cells in separated cell cultures. This modeling and pilot research have important implications for information sciences, providing a potential architecture for quantum computing that operates at room temperature and is scalable to millions of qubits, and including the potential for an entanglement communication system based upon the quantum DNA architecture. Such a system could be used to provide non-local quantum key distribution that could not be blocked by any shielding or water depth, would …

Magnetic Vector Potential Manipulation Of Majorana Fermions In Dna Quantum Logic, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

In the quantum logic of the DNA molecule, electrons are held and conducted coherently as spinless Cooper pairs and are shielded from electromagnetic energy by a Faraday cage effect of the double lipid bilayer of the nuclear membrane. The magnetic vector potential generated by cellular depolarization can synchronize logical activity in portions of the DNA molecule by affecting spin directions of appropriately oriented spinless electrons via the Aharonov-Bohm effect, but is not blocked by that Faraday cage effect. Within the logically and thermodynamically reversible chiral enantiomeric symmetry of the deoxyribose moieties the decoherent transition of Cooper pair to Dirac pair …

Therapeutic Potential Of Trp Channels In The Targeting Of Rheumatoid Arthritis Synovial Fibroblasts, Brittany Isabella Schwam

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease primarily affecting the synovium, articular cartilage, and bone within a joint, but it is a unique form of arthritis wherein effects are systemic. The cause of this autoimmune disease remains unknown, but there are many environmental and genetic factors that play into susceptibility. Research is still far from drug-free remission despite great advancements over the past few decades. The majority of therapies developed rely on immunosuppressant or immunomodulator molecules and come with risk of infection, high costs, and toxic, uncontrolled side effects. Those diagnosed maintain a significant unmet need for targeted therapies.

There …

Remotely Controlled Enzyme Behavior Using Localized Thermal Gradients, Sarah Brown

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

No existing model describes an identified special case of enzyme behavior when directly stimulated with thermal energy via an RF field.

The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Nano-medicine and biotechnology are the future of medical diagnostics and treatment. The ability to remotely influence cellular functions and outcomes is a new approach to targeted medicine. Direct heating of an enzyme vs bulk heating changes the enzyme activity.

I tested how direct transfer of thermal energy changes rates of enzyme reactions. We created samples of enzymes, attached to ferrous (magnetic) nano-particles, and …

Multisite Comparison Of Mri Defacing Software Across Multiple Cohorts, Athena E. Theyers, Mojdeh Zamyadi, Mark O'Reilly, Robert Bartha, Sean Symons, Glenda M. Macqueen, Stefanie Hassel, Jason P. Lerch, Evdokia Anagnostou, Raymond W. Lam, Benicio N. Frey, Roumen Milev, Daniel J. Müller, Sidney H. Kennedy, Christopher J.M. Scott, Stephen C. Strother, Stephen R. Arnott

Medical Biophysics Publications

With improvements to both scan quality and facial recognition software, there is an increased risk of participants being identified by a 3D render of their structural neuroimaging scans, even when all other personal information has been removed. To prevent this, facial features should be removed before data are shared or openly released, but while there are several publicly available software algorithms to do this, there has been no comprehensive review of their accuracy within the general population. To address this, we tested multiple algorithms on 300 scans from three neuroscience research projects, funded in part by the Ontario Brain Institute, …

Kinetic Analysis Of Dominant Intraprostatic Lesion Of Prostate Cancer Using Quantitative Dynamic [18F]Dcfpyl-Pet: Comparison To [18F]Fluorocholine-Pet, Dae Myoung Yang, Fiona Li, Glenn Bauman, Joseph Chin, Stephen Pautler, Madeleine Moussa, Irina Rachinsky, John Valliant, Ting Yim Lee

Medical Biophysics Publications

Purpose: Identification of the dominant intraprostatic lesion(s) (DILs) can facilitate diagnosis and treatment by targeting biologically significant intra-prostatic foci. A PSMA ligand, [ F]DCFPyL (2-(3-{1-carboxy-5-[(6-[ F]fluoro-pyridine-3-carbonyl)-amino]-pentyl}-ureido)-pentanedioic acid), is better than choline-based [ F]FCH (fluorocholine) in detecting and localizing DIL because of higher tumour contrast, particularly when imaging is delayed to 1 h post-injection. The goal of this study was to investigate whether the different imaging performance of [ F]FCH and [ F]DCFPyL can be explained by their kinetic behaviour in prostate cancer (PCa) and to evaluate whether DIL can be accurately detected and localized using a short duration dynamic positron …

Utilization Of Salvage And Systemic Therapies For Recurrent Prostate Cancer As A Result Of 18F-Dcfpyl Pet/Ct Restaging, Wei Liu, Katherine Zukotynski, Louise Emmett, Hans T. Chung, Peter Chung, Robert Wolfson, Irina Rachinsky, Anil Kapoor, Ur Metser, Andrew Loblaw, Gerard Morton, Tracy Sexton, Michael Lock, Joelle Helou, Alejandro Berlin, Colm Boylan, Susan Archer, Gregory R. Pond, Glenn Bauman

Medical Biophysics Publications

Purpose: Our purpose was to investigate the effect of the addition of prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in patients with recurrent prostate cancer post-primary radiation therapy. Methods and Materials: A prospective, multi-institutional clinical trial evaluated 2-(3-{1-carboxy-5-[(6-[18F]fluoro-pyridine-3-carbonyl)-amino]-pentyl}-ureido)-pentanedioic acid ( F-DCFPyL) PET/CT restaging in 79 men with recurrent prostate cancer post-primary radiation therapy. We report actual patient management and compare this with proposed management both before and after PSMA-targeted PET/CT. Results: Most patients (59%) had a major change in actual management compared with pre-PET/CT proposed management. The rate of major change was underestimated by immediately post-PET/CT surveys (32%). …

Disease-Related Cortical Thinning In Presymptomatic Granulin Mutation Carriers, Sergi Borrego-Écija, Roser Sala-Llonch, John Van Swieten, Barbara Borroni, Fermín Moreno, Mario Masellis, Carmela Tartaglia, Caroline Graff, Daniela Galimberti, Robert Laforce, James B. Rowe, Elizabeth Finger, Rik Vandenberghe, Fabrizio Tagliavini, Alexandre De Mendonça, Isabel Santana, Matthis Synofzik, Simon Ducharme, Johannes Levin, Adrian Danek, Alex Gerhard, Markus Otto, Chris Butler, Giovanni Frisoni, Sandro Sorbi, Carolin Heller, Martina Bocchetta, David M. Cash, Rhian S. Convery, Katrina M. Moore, Jonathan D. Rohrer, Raquel Sanchez-Valle

Medical Biophysics Publications

Mutations in the granulin gene (GRN) cause familial frontotemporal dementia. Understanding the structural brain changes in presymptomatic GRN carriers would enforce the use of neuroimaging biomarkers for early diagnosis and monitoring. We studied 100 presymptomatic GRN mutation carriers and 94 noncarriers from the Genetic Frontotemporal dementia initiative (GENFI), with MRI structural images. We analyzed 3T MRI structural images using the FreeSurfer pipeline to calculate the whole brain cortical thickness (CTh) for each subject. We also perform a vertex-wise general linear model to assess differences between groups in the relationship between CTh and diverse covariables as gender, age, the estimated years …

Case – 18F-Dcfpyl-Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography (Pet/Ct) Time Of Imaging, Golmehr Sistani, Ur Metser, Glenn S. Bauman, David T. Laidley, Stephen E. Pautler, Katherine A. Zukotynski

Medical Biophysics Publications

No abstract provided.

Cortical Thickness Estimation In Individuals With Cerebral Small Vessel Disease, Focal Atrophy, And Chronic Stroke Lesions, Miracle Ozzoude, Joel Ramirez, Pradeep Reddy Raamana, Melissa F. Holmes, Kirstin Walker, Christopher J.M. Scott, Fuqiang Gao, Maged Goubran, Donna Kwan, Maria C. Tartaglia, Derek Beaton, Gustavo Saposnik, Ayman Hassan, Jane Lawrence-Dewar, Dariush Dowlatshahi, Stephen C. Strother, Sean Symons, Robert Bartha, Richard H. Swartz, Sandra E. Black

Medical Biophysics Publications

Background: Regional changes to cortical thickness in individuals with neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular diseases (CVD) can be estimated using specialized neuroimaging software. However, the presence of cerebral small vessel disease, focal atrophy, and cortico-subcortical stroke lesions, pose significant challenges that increase the likelihood of misclassification errors and segmentation failures. Purpose: The main goal of this study was to examine a correction procedure developed for enhancing FreeSurfer’s (FS’s) cortical thickness estimation tool, particularly when applied to the most challenging MRI obtained from participants with chronic stroke and CVD, with varying degrees of neurovascular lesions and brain atrophy. Methods: In 155 CVD participants …

Histologic Tissue Components Provide Major Cues For Machine Learning-Based Prostate Cancer Detection And Grading On Prostatectomy Specimens, Wenchao Han, Carol Johnson, Mena Gaed, José A. Gómez, Madeleine Moussa, Joseph L. Chin, Stephen Pautler, Glenn S. Bauman, Aaron D. Ward

Medical Biophysics Publications

Automatically detecting and grading cancerous regions on radical prostatectomy (RP) sections facilitates graphical and quantitative pathology reporting, potentially benefitting post-surgery prognosis, recurrence prediction, and treatment planning after RP. Promising results for detecting and grading prostate cancer on digital histopathology images have been reported using machine learning techniques. However, the importance and applicability of those methods have not been fully investigated. We computed three-class tissue component maps (TCMs) from the images, where each pixel was labeled as nuclei, lumina, or other. We applied seven different machine learning approaches: three non-deep learning classifiers with features extracted from TCMs, and four deep learning, …

A Telescope Gwas Analysis Strategy, Based On Snps-Genes-Pathways Ensamble And On Multivariate Algorithms, To Characterize Late Onset Alzheimer’S Disease, Margherita Squillario, Giulia Abate, Federico Tomasi, Veronica Tozzo, Annalisa Barla, Daniela Uberti, Michael W. Weiner, Paul Aisen, Ronald Petersen, Jack R. Clifford, William Jagust, John Q. Trojanowki, Arthur W. Toga, Laurel Beckett, Robert C. Green, Andrew J. Saykin, John Morris, Leslie M. Shaw, Zaven Khachaturian, Greg Sorensen, Maria Carrillo, Lew Kuller, Marc Raichle, Steven Paul, Peter Davies, Howard Fillit, Franz Hefti, Davie Holtzman, M. Marcel Mesulam, William Potter, Peter Snyder, Tom Montine

Medical Biophysics Publications

Genome–wide association studies (GWAS) have revealed a plethora of putative susceptibility genes for Alzheimer’s disease (AD), with the sole exception of APOE gene unequivocally validated in independent study. Considering that the etiology of complex diseases like AD could depend on functional multiple genes interaction network, here we proposed an alternative GWAS analysis strategy based on (i) multivariate methods and on a (ii) telescope approach, in order to guarantee the identification of correlated variables, and reveal their connections at three biological connected levels. Specifically as multivariate methods, we employed two machine learning algorithms and a genetic association test and we considered …

Challenges And Opportunities With Causal Discovery Algorithms: Application To Alzheimer’S Pathophysiology, Xinpeng Shen, Sisi Ma, Prashanthi Vemuri, Gyorgy Simon, Michael W. Weiner, Paul Aisen, Ronald Petersen, Clifford R. Jack, Andrew J. Saykin, William Jagust, John Q. Trojanowki, Arthur W. Toga, Laurel Beckett, Robert C. Green, John Morris, Leslie M. Shaw, Zaven Khachaturian, Greg Sorensen, Maria Carrillo, Lew Kuller, Marc Raichle, Steven Paul, Peter Davies, Howard Fillit, Franz Hefti, David Holtzman, M. Marcel Mesulam, William Potter, Peter Snyder, Adam Schwartz, Tom Montine, Ronald G. Thomas

Medical Biophysics Publications

Causal Structure Discovery (CSD) is the problem of identifying causal relationships from large quantities of data through computational methods. With the limited ability of traditional association-based computational methods to discover causal relationships, CSD methodologies are gaining popularity. The goal of the study was to systematically examine whether (i) CSD methods can discover the known causal relationships from observational clinical data and (ii) to offer guidance to accurately discover known causal relationships. We used Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a complex progressive disease, as a model because the well-established evidence provides a “gold-standard” causal graph for evaluation. We evaluated two CSD methods, Fast …

Fam222a Encodes A Protein Which Accumulates In Plaques In Alzheimer’S Disease, Tingxiang Yan, Jingjing Liang, Ju Gao, Luwen Wang, Hisashi Fujioka, Michael W. Weiner, Norbert Schuff, Howard J. Rosen, Bruce L. Miller, David Perry, Paul Aisen, Paul Aisen, Arthur W. Toga, Gustavo Jimenez, Michael Donohue, Devon Gessert, Kelly Harless, Jennifer Salazar, Yuliana Cabrera, Sarah Walter, Lindsey Hergesheimer, Arthur W. Toga, Karen Crawford, Scott Neu, Lon S. Schneider, Sonia Pawluczyk, Mauricio Becerra, Liberty Teodoro, Bryan M. Spann, Ronald Petersen, Clifford R. Jack, Matthew Bernstein

Medical Biophysics Publications

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by amyloid plaques and progressive cerebral atrophy. Here, we report FAM222A as a putative brain atrophy susceptibility gene. Our cross-phenotype association analysis of imaging genetics indicates a potential link between FAM222A and AD-related regional brain atrophy. The protein encoded by FAM222A is predominantly expressed in the CNS and is increased in brains of patients with AD and in an AD mouse model. It accumulates within amyloid deposits, physically interacts with amyloid-β (Aβ) via its N-terminal Aβ binding domain, and facilitates Aβ aggregation. Intracerebroventricular infusion or forced expression of this protein exacerbates neuroinflammation and cognitive dysfunction …

Social Cognition Impairment In Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Within The Genfi Cohort, Lucy L. Russell, Caroline V. Greaves, Martina Bocchetta, Jennifer Nicholas, Rhian S. Convery, Katrina Moore, David M. Cash, John Van Swieten, Lize Jiskoot, Fermin Moreno, Raquel Sanchez-Valle, Barbara Borroni, Robert Laforce, Mario Masellis, Maria Carmela Tartaglia, Caroline Graff, Emanuela Rotondo, Daniela Galimberti, James B. Rowe, Elizabeth Finger, Matthis Synofzik, Rik Vandenberghe, Alexandre De Mendonça, Fabrizio Tagliavini, Isabel Santana, Simon Ducharme, Chris Butler, Alex Gerhard, Johannes Levin, Adrian Danek, Markus Otto, Jason D. Warren

Medical Biophysics Publications

A key symptom of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is difficulty interacting socially with others. Social cognition problems in FTD include impaired emotion processing and theory of mind difficulties, and whilst these have been studied extensively in sporadic FTD, few studies have investigated them in familial FTD. Facial Emotion Recognition (FER) and Faux Pas (FP) recognition tests were used to study social cognition within the Genetic Frontotemporal Dementia Initiative (GENFI), a large familial FTD cohort of C9orf72, GRN, and MAPT mutation carriers. 627 participants undertook at least one of the tasks, and were separated into mutation-negative healthy controls, presymptomatic mutation carriers (split …