Retrospectively gated cardiac cine imaging with temporal and spatial acceleration

Parallel imaging methods are routinely used to accelerate the image acquisition process in cardiac cine imaging. The addition of a temporal acceleration method, whereby k-space is sampled differently for different time frames, has been shown in prior work to improve image quality as compared to parallel imaging by itself. However, such temporal acceleration strategies prove difficult to combine with retrospectively gated cine imaging. The only currently published method to feature such combination, by Hansen et al. [Magn Reson Med 55 (2006) 85-91] tends to be associated with prohibitively long reconstruction times. The goal of the present work was to develop a retrospectively gated cardiac cine method that features both parallel imaging and temporal acceleration, capable of achieving significant acceleration factors on commonly available hardware and associated with reconstruction times short enough for practical use in a clinical context.Seven cardiac patients and a healthy volunteer were recruited and imaged, with acceleration factors of 3.5 or 4.5, using an eight-channel product cardiac array on a 1.5-T system. The prescribed FOV value proved slightly too small in three patients, and one of the patients had a bigemini condition. Despite these additional challenges, good-quality results were obtained for all slices and all patients, with a reconstruction time of 0.98±0.07 s per frame, or about 20 s for a 20-frame slice, using a single processor on a single PC. As compared to using parallel imaging by itself, the addition of a temporal acceleration strategy provided much resistance to artifacts.     

5,7,9-桃柘三烯类化合物的合成研究

生物标志物[1] 最初来自于生物体 ,是由碳、氢和其他元素组成的复杂有机化合物。它们存在于页岩、沉积物和原油中 ,与生物体的母体有机分子结构差别很小或基本没有差别。由于其复杂的结构能提供许多成因和地质历史的有用信息。Ｇａｌｌｅｇｏｓ[2 ] 研究格林河页岩时 ,提取许多单芳三环二萜类化合物 ,认为这类化合物是由三环和五环萜类或甾类经过断裂及芳构化作用而形成的。这类化合物的结构在地质样品中经ＧＣ ＭＳ和计算机检索而推测出来。本文合成的标准样品与其地质样品的质谱图基本吻合[3 ] ,同时为进一步研究页岩地质环境、成因和历史…     

褐煤蜡中树脂组分的化学研究：生物标志化合物

用气相色谱－质谱联用仪对吉林舒兰褐煤蜡树脂和云南寻甸褐煤蜡树脂,进行了生物标志化合物的研究。结果指出,三萜类化合物中含有四环三萜、五环三萜、芳香五环三萜和含氧化合物,其中以Ｃ２５Ａ,Ｂ,Ｃ,Ｄ环－四芳鸟散烷和Ｃ２５Ａ,Ｂ,Ｃ,Ｄ环－四芳奥利烷含量最高,舒兰树脂中这两种化合物的含量高于寻甸树脂约１０倍;无羁萜和３－氧代别桦木烷量亦以舒兰树脂占优势     

Trace LC/MS/MS quantitation of 17β‐estradiol as a biomarker for selective estrogen receptor modulator activity in the rat brain

A sensitive LC/MS/MS method has been developed by derivatization of 17β‐estradiol (E2) with dansyl chloride to quantitate 17β‐E2 in female rat serum. The use of E2‐d₅ minimized interferences from endogenous 17β‐E2 in order to achieve a limit of quantitation (LOQ) of 2.5 pg/ml using 150 µl of female rat serum. The recovery of the dansyl derivative was 95% or greater in quality control samples. The intra and interday assay precision was better than 8.2 and 6.2%, respectively, with accuracies ranging from 97 to 101% in the quality control samples. The assay was used for the quantitation of serum E2 as a biomarker for the estrogen receptor (ER) antagonist activity of small molecule SERMs (selective estrogen receptor modulators) in the female rat brain. The study revealed that a statistically significant upregulation of serum 17β‐E2 occurred for rats dosed with SERMs that are known to penetrate the brain and disrupt the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐ovarian (HPO) axis. Variations in 17β‐E2 in ascending dose studies also correlated with the corresponding trends in CYP17a1 levels, an mRNA biomarker for ovarian hyperstimulation. This biomarker assay has provided a useful screen for medicinal chemistry optimization to produce SERMs that do not interfere with negative feedback of estrogens on the brain and for biological hypothesis testing. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Targeted Metabolomics for Biomarker Discovery

Metabolomics is a truly interdisciplinary field of science, which combines analytical chemistry, platform technology, mass spectrometry, and NMR spectroscopy with sophisticated data analysis. Applied to biomarker discovery, it includes aspects of pathobiochemistry, systems biology/medicine, and molecular diagnostics and requires bioinformatics and multivariate statistics. While successfully established in the screening of inborn errors in neonates, metabolomics is now widely used in the characterization and diagnostic research of an ever increasing number of diseases. In this Review we highlight important technical prerequisites as well as recent developments in metabolomics and metabolomics data analysis with special emphasis on their utility in biomarker identification and qualification, as well as targeted metabolomics by employing high‐throughput mass spectrometry.     

利用短期心脏记忆消除螺旋波和时空混沌

在Luo-Rudy的心脏模型中引入了记忆效应, 该记忆效应表现为膜间电压的延迟耦合. 研究了记忆效应对螺旋波的影响, 数值模拟结果表明:心脏记忆可导致螺旋波无规则漫游;当延迟时间适当选取时, 增加记忆强度会导致螺旋波的频率减小, 如果记忆强度超过临界值, 心脏记忆效应还可以使螺旋波和时空混沌消失, 因为含时外行钾离子电流被心脏记忆过度抑制.     

Comparison of molecular images as defined by Raman spectra between normal mucosa and squamous cell carcinoma in the oral cavity

Raman spectroscopy has been effectively applied to clinically differentiate normal and cancerous mucosal tissues. Micro‐Raman spectroscopy provides a tool to better understand the molecular basis for the Raman clinical signal. The objective of the current study was to utilize micro‐Raman spectroscopy to define the molecular/spectral differences between normal and abnormal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in oral mucosa (in vitro). Understanding this may help in identifying unique spectra or may be useful for in vivo application of this technology. Micro‐Raman (confocal) spectroscopy was used to obtain molecular images of normal and SCC cells of human oral mucosa. Four fresh flashed‐frozen tumor and four matched normal tongue specimens were studied. The spectra covered a wavenumber range from 300 to 4000 cm⁻¹ with a spectral resolution of 8 cm⁻¹ and a spatial resolution of 1.0 µm. The cells were located within thin sections of tongue mucosa biopsies. The excitation wavelength of 515 nm was used. We were able to obtain Raman images with rich information about the spectroscopic and structural features within the cytoplasm, cell membrane, and cell nuclei. Significant spectral differences were observed between the Raman images of normal and malignant squamous cells. The heterogeneity of tumor cells within the abnormal tissue was also demonstrated. Spectral differences demonstrated between both tissue types have provided important information regarding the origins of specific signals within the cells of each tissue type. In our search for specific spectral biomarkers, we believe that a cell surface protein, greatly upregulated in SCC cells, was discovered at 1583 cm⁻¹. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

心瓣流体动力学研究进展

心瓣流体动力学是近年来才形成的一门新兴边缘学科分支。本文比较全面地介绍了该学科的主要研究内容、研究特点、发生发展的历史和现状,以及笔者及其同事在这方面的工作,提出并论述了对学科发展有重大影响的几个富有挑战性的问题,从而预示了学科的发展方向      

STUDY ON MECHANICAL INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SINGLE CARDIAC MYOCYTE AND ELASTIC SUBSTRATE

Quantitative investigation on mechanical characteristics of cardiac myocytes has important physiological significance. Based on elastic substrate technique, this paper develops a set of algorithms for high-efficiency cellular traction recovery. By applying a gradient-based digital image correlation method to track randomly distributed fluorescence microbeads on the deformed substrate induced by single cardiac myocyte, high-resolution substrate displacement field can readily be obtained. By using a numerical algorithm based on the integral Boussinesq solution, cell-substrate tractions are reconstructed in a stable and reliable manner. Finally, spatiotemporal dynamics of a single cardiac myocyte is investigated as it adheres to a polyacrylamide elastic substrate.     

心肌细胞大变形黏弹性模型及在实验中的应用

在衡量单个细胞力学行为的研究中,越来越多地采用结合实验的数值模拟方法. 在连续介质力学框架下,发展了一种新的心肌细胞本构模型,并与微管吮吸实验结合,探讨了心肌细胞的力学特性. 本构模型是对普遍使用的仅能用于小变形分析的标准线性固体模型的一种扩展,它将超弹性性能引入到黏弹性模型中,用以描述细胞的大变形黏弹性效应. 基于改进的本构模型,对心肌细胞微管吮吸实验过程进行了有限元模拟,并将计算结果与实验结果以及经典理论解进行了对比. 结果显示发展的本构模型适合细胞大变形问题的有限元数值模拟.