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Lipid
Elemental and Structural Composition underlying Brain MRI
- Abstract
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is widely established, with 50,000 scanners worldwide and more than100 million diagnostic scans conducted yearly. Myelin acts as the electrical insulation of neuronal fibers andis essential for motor, sensory, and cognitive functions and is composed of several lipids and proteins arrangedin a specific geometry. However, myelin loss occurs regionally in inflammatory diseases like multiplesclerosis, myelitis, and optic neuritis, and it also serves as a biomarker of aging.Despite the availability of various MRI-based approaches for detecting myelin, there remains a significant gapin systematically validated knowledge regarding how myelin's lipids, proteins, and structural variationsinfluence MRI signal generation. Furthermore, there is no gold standard for assessing the constituents ofmyelin, and conclusions are primarily based on MRI of formalin-fixed tissue.Quantitative post-mortem MRI of unfixed human brains in situ, combined with subsequent mass spectrometryimaging (LA-ICP-TOF-MS, MALDI-MSI), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), and microscopy (CARS,TEM, IHC), will enable histologically enriched modelling of tissue and the simulation of fundamental MRIparameters (relaxometry, susceptibility, and diffusion) to reveal causal relationships with chemical elements,matrix composition, structure, and common molecules of myelin, neural fiber orientation, and biometals. Inaddition to 20 control brains, 10 brains from deceased individuals with multiple sclerosis will be recruited tobroaden the spectrum of myelination under investigation.This research addresses the fundamental biophysical mechanisms underlying MRI of myelin and chemicalelements, which currently lack validation. We will establish a publicly available elemental and histochemicalatlas of the human brain and identify how histological features causally contribute to quantitative MRIparameters.
- Project Leader:
- Langkammer Christian
- Duration:
- 01.10.2025-30.09.2030
- Programme:
- Wissenschaftsexzellenz - Europäischer Forschungsrat (ERC)
- EU-Project Instruments
- ERC Grant
- Type of Research
- basic research
- Staff
- Langkammer, C, Project Leader
- Haindl, M, Sub Projectleader
- Leoni, M, Sub Projectleader
- Gassner, R, Sub Projectleader
- Hauser, M, Co-worker
- Capponi, A, Co-worker
- Zampieri, L, Co-worker
- Sejdic, S, Co-worker
- Nielsen, J, Co-worker
- Roth, D, Co-worker
- Hallwirth, F, Co-worker
- MUG Research Units
- Department of Neurology
- Diagnostic and Research Institute of Pathology