IMag

Imaging Lymph Nodes with Nanoparticles

Accurate staging of cancers is one of the most important parts of thework up of patients for both prediction of prognosis and determinationof the most appropriate treatment. And an essential part of this workup is assessing wh...

New imaging method gives early indication if brain cancer therapy is effective, U-M study shows

A special type of MRI scan that measures the flow of water molecules through the brain can help doctors determine early in the course of brain cancer regimen if a patient's tumor will shrink, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center developed the assessment, which they call a functional diffusion map. They used a magnetic resonance imaging sc...

Special Imaging Study Shows Failing Hearts Are 'Energy Starved'

Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for the first time to examine energy production biochemistry in a beating human heart, Johns Hopkins researchers have found substantial energy deficits in failing hearts. The findings, published in the January 18 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, confirm what many scientists have conjectured for years about heart fail...

Duke engineers develop new 3-D cardiac imaging probe

Biomedical engineers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have created a new three-dimensional ultrasound cardiac imaging probe. Inserted inside the esophagus, the probe creates a picture of the whole heart in the time it takes for current ultrasound technology to image a single heart cross section. The new probe has considerable potential not only for evaluating the condition...

Confocal imaging promises early detection of skin cancer

Skin cancer is on the increase. Recent statistics for Germany show that some 10 to 12 people in every 100,000 get the disease every year. Alarmingly, this figure is growing at the rate of five to ten per cent annually. From the same group, some 140 will also get non-melanoma or less serious skin cancers. “Diagnosis of skin cancers can take weeks, depending on the health system,?says Dr Ja...

Newer imaging techniques may lead to over-treatment

Newer imaging technologies allow physicians to visualize more of the arteries in the lungs, including detecting small blood clots not previously seen, but seeing more may have little impact on the patient's outcome, a new study suggests. The study included 198 patients with suspected pulmonary embolism. About half of the patients (98) had a multidetector CT (MDCT) examination; 100 patients...

Researchers use 3-D imaging system to unveil swimming behavior of microscopic plankton

From the surface, the ocean appears to be vast and uniform. But beneath the surface, tiny animals called zooplankton are swept into clusters and patches by ocean currents. The very survival of many zooplankton predators--from invertebrates to whales--and the success of fishermen catches can depend on their success at finding those patches. For almost a century ocean scientists have suspect...

Microscopic brain imaging in the palm of your hand

New portable device captures pictures beneath the living brain's surfaceResearchers at Stanford University have demonstrated a promising, minimally invasive optical technique that can capture micron-scale images from deep in the brains of live subjects. The method, called two-photon microendoscopy, combines a pair of powerful optical and mechanical techniques into one device that fits in the palm...

New imaging technology shown to detect pancreatic inflammation in type 1 diabetes

A key obstacle to early detection of type 1 diabetes - as well as to rapid assessment of the effectiveness of therapeutic intervention - has been the lack of direct, non-invasive technologies to visualize inflammation in the pancreas, an early manifestation of disease. Instead, clinicians have had to await overt symptoms before diagnosing an individual, by which time destruction of the insulin-pr...

Purdue's gold nanorods brighten future for medical imaging

Researchers at Purdue University have taken a step toward developing a new type of ultra-sensitive medical imaging technique that works by shining a laser through the skin to detect tiny gold nanorods injected into the bloodstream. In tests with mice, the nanorods yielded images nearly 60 times brighter than conventional fluorescent dyes, including rhodamine, commonly used for a wide range...

PET imaging reveals the immune system at work

For clinicians, the ability to look routinely inside the body and see -- at the level of the cell -- how it confronts disease is a distant dream. But in a series of experiments with genetically engineered mice, a team of researchers from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the University of California Los Angeles has taken a key step toward realizing that vision by demonstrating the abi...

Image of myosin-actin interaction revealed in cover story of Molecular Cell

Scientists from the Burnham Institute for Medical Research and the University of Vermont have captured the first 3-dimensional (3D) atomic-resolution images of the motor protein myosin V as it "walks" along other proteins, revealing new structural insights that advance the current model of protein motility and muscle contraction. The culmination of four years of work, this collaboration among bi...

New technique puts brain-imaging research on its head

It's a scene football fans will see over and over during the bowl and NFL playoff seasons: a player, often the quarterback, being slammed to the ground and hitting the back of his head on the landing. Sure, it hurts, but what happens to the inside of the skull? Researchers and doctors long have relied upon crude approximations made from test dummy crashes or mathematical models that infe...

T-rays: New imaging technology spotlighted by American Chemical Society

T-ray sensing and imaging technology, which can spot cracks in space shuttle foam, see biological agents through a sealed envelope and detect tumors without harmful radiation, was the focus of a recent symposium at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society. Charles A....

UCLA imaging study of children with autism finds broken mirror neuron system

New imaging research at UCLA detailed Dec. 4 as an advance online publication of the journal Nature Neuroscience shows children with autism have virtually no activity in a key part of the brain's mirror neuron system while imitating and observing emotions. Mirror neurons fire when a person performs a goal-directed action and while he or she observes the same action performed by others. Neu...

Terahertz imaging may reduce breast cancer surgeries

A promising new technique to ensure complete tumor removal at breast cancer excision is introduced in the May issue of Radiology. Researchers used light waves in a newly explored region of the electromagnetic spectrum--the terahertz region--to examine excised breast tissue and determine if the removed tissue margins were clear of cancer, with good results. This technology has the potential...

New hybrid virus provides targeted molecular imaging of cancer

Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have created a new class of hybrid virus and demonstrated its ability to find, highlight, and deliver genes to tumors in mice. Researchers say the advance, reported in the journal Cell, is potentially an important step in making human cancer both more visible and accessible to treatment; it may also allow prediction and mo...

Key heart and Alzheimer's disease protein imaged for first time in native state

Researchers for the first time have created a three-dimensional image of apolipoprotein E, a protein long associated with cardiovascular disease and more recently with Alzheimer's disease, as it appears when it is bound to fat-like substances known as lipids. Using the technique known as x-ray crystallography, scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) have cre...

Imaging study links key genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease to myelin breakdown

A new UCLA imaging study shows that age-related breakdown of myelin, the fatty insulation coating the brain's internal wiring, correlates strongly with the presence of a key genetic risk factor for Alzheimer disease. The findings are detailed in the January edition of the peer-reviewed journal Archives of General Psychiatry and add to a growing body of evidence that myelin breakdown is a k...

New MRI technique quickly builds 3-D images of knees

A faster magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data-acquisition technique will cut the time many patients spend in a cramped magnetic resonance scanner, yet deliver more precise 3-D images of their bodies. Developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the faster technique will enable clinics to image more patients - particularly the burgeoning group of older adults with osteoarthritis-rela...

Everything in its place: Researchers identify brain cells used to categorize images

Socks in the sock drawer, shirts in the shirt drawer, the time-honored lessons of helping organize one's clothes learned in youth. But what parts of the brain are used to encode such categories as socks, shirts or any other item, and how does such learning take place? New research from Harvard Medical School (HMS) investigators has identified an area of the brain where such memories are...

Coming soon: 3-D imaging that flies 'through' and 'around' cancer

Stanford University researchers demonstrated for the first time the ability to create 3-D positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) images for "fly-through" and "fly-around viewing" of cancer in the lungs and colon, according to a study in the July issue of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine. This powerful ability to meld functional data with accurate anatomical information...

Patients to benefit from novel technology revolutionizing high-speed molecular imaging

The new technologically advanced D-SPECT camera enables shorter image acquisition times, provides better image quality and opens the door to new diagnostic procedures using simultaneous multi-isotope imaging--providing the potential to revolutionize functional imaging, according to results released at SNM's 53rd Annual Meeting June 3? in San Diego. "The potential of using more than one tr...

Thermal imaging shatters arousal gender gap myth

A new McGill University study that used thermal imaging technology for the first time ever to measure sexual arousal rates has turned the conventional wisdom that women become aroused more slowly than men on its head. "Comparing sexual arousal between men and women, we see that there is no difference in the amount of time it takes healthy young men and women to reach peak arousal,...

With record resolution and sensitivity, tool images how life organizes in a cell membrane

What's the difference between a lifeless sack of chemicals and a living cell? It's all in the way they're organized, according to Stanford biophysical chemist Steven Boxer. With colleagues at Stanford, the University of California-Davis and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, he has developed a way to image cell membranes with unprecedented resolution-on the order of 100 nanometers, a scale l...

Got inexpensive contrast agent? Milk plays new role in imaging

In a new twist on the slogan “milk does a body good,?radiologists are testing use of the dairy staple as a contrast agent in gastrointestinal imaging exams—with excellent results. The researchers reported their findings today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “We are able to achieve similar bowel distension and enhancement as we see with the commonl...

Elasticity imaging identifies cancers and reduces breast biopsies

A new ultrasound technique allows radiologists to accurately distinguish benign from malignant breast lesions. Using elasticity imaging, researchers correctly identified both cancerous and harmless lesions in nearly all of the cases studied. The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “In our work, elasticity imaging has been...

Researchers image molecular motor structural changes

An international team of researchers has shed new light on how tiny molecular motors that transport materials within cells generate the energy that powers their movements. The knowledge could lead to better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of a range of human disorders such as Down syndrome caused by faulty molecular motors, and possibly to the development of new treatments, the...

Teenager moves video icons just by imagination

Now, a St. Louis-area teenage boy and a computer game have gone hands-off, thanks to a unique experiment conducted by a team of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and engineers at Washington University in St. Louis. The boy, a 14-year-old who suffers from epilepsy, is the first teenager to play a two-dimensional video game, Space Invaders, using only the signals from his brain to make movement...

Detailed 3-D image catches a key regulator of neural stem cell differentiation in action

Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) took a high resolution "action shot" of a protein switch that plays a crucial role in the development of the nervous system. Their findings, published in the Dec. 8 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, provide a template for the design of small molecule inhib...

PET imaging shows young smokers quick benefit of quitting

The early stages of coronary artery disease in young smokers can be reversed quickly if they choose to put out their cigarettes for good, according to a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging study in the December Journal of Nuclear Medicine. "I believe this is the first PET study that shows abnormal coronary function is reversible after only one month of smoking cessation," said Naga...

Preliminary study finds holographic imaging system promising for cancer treatment planning

The device looks like something out of an old science fiction movie, but researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago say it holds promise in the treatment of cancer. The Perspecta® Spatial 3D system, developed by Actuality Systems, Inc., creates holographic images inside a 24-inch dome. The full-color, full-motion system can display images of the body revealing the exact loc...

One-of-a-kind imaging probe reveals secrets useful for drug discovery

Good things may indeed come in small packages for scientists eager to find natural substances to help cure diseases. The challenge is to analyze material that is smaller than the proverbial gnat's eyelash. But using a refined version of nuclear magnetic resonance technology, or NMR, scientists have unlocked secrets hidden in tiny amounts of venom taken from spindly insects called common tw...

New imaging technique tracks traffic patterns of white blood cells

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have just developed an advanced imaging technique to capture the movement of the microdomains of leukocytes or white blood cells. Microdomains are restricted areas on the surface of the cells in which receptors and signaling molecules accumulate during cell activation. Using digital multi-channel videomicroscopy, researchers were able to view white bl...

CSIRO imagery shows Outer Great Barrier Reef at risk from river plumes

A stunning series of satellite imagery of Australia's Great Barrier Reef released by the CSIRO shows for the first time visual confirmation of the theory that sediment plumes travel to the outer reef, and beyond. The remotely sensed images, taken from February 9 to 13 this year, challenge conventional thought that sediment travelling from our river systems into the GBR is captured by the...

Novel computed imaging technique uses blurry images to enhance view

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed a novel computational image-forming technique for optical microscopy that can produce crisp, three-dimensional images from blurry, out-of-focus data. Called Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Microscopy, ISAM can do for optical microscopy what magnetic resonance imaging did for nuclear magnetic resonance, and what...

Ultrasound upgrade produces images that work like 3-D movies

Parents-to-be might soon don 3-D glasses in the ultrasound lab to see their developing fetuses in the womb "in living 3-D, just like at the IMAX movies," according to researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering. The same Duke team that first developed real-time, three-dimensional ultrasound imaging says it has now modified the commercial version of the scanner to produce a...

Computer imaging assists with facial reconstructive surgery

A new calibration technique that involves measuring the distance between the upper ear and chin in photographs could help facial plastic surgeons use computer imaging software to achieve aesthetic harmony in their patients, according to a report in the March/April issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. “The importance of balanced facial proportions...

Bioluminescence at the service of a novel cerebral imaging technique

CNRS scientists in collaboration have developed a new technique for the in vivo imaging of neuronal function using bioluminescence, based on a GFP-aequorin fusion protein. This imaging technique enables the monitoring of neuronal activity (and more specifically, calcium activity), real-time and in-vivo, in either a small group of neurons or in the brain as a whole. Participating in the de...

Imaging techniques permit scientists to follow a day -- or four -- in the life of a cell

\The movement and growth of cells are critical for normal physiological processes, and--when perturbed--can result in negative outcomes such as tumor formation. Understanding how live cells function is therefore invaluable for molecular and cellular biologists, and advanced techniques to visualize cells in action are of great importance. The current issue of (<...