Diffusion MRI

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Heidi Johansen-Berg, Timothy E.J. Behrens

Diffusion MRI remains the most comprehensive reference for understanding this rapidly evolving and powerful technology and is an essential handbook for designing, analyzing, and interpreting diffusion MR experiments. Diffusion imaging provides a unique window on human brain anatomy. This non-invasive technique continues to grow in popularity as a way to study brain pathways that could never before be investigated in vivo. This book covers the fundamental theory of diffusion imaging, discusses its most promising applications to basic and clinical neuroscience, and introduces cutting-edge methodological developments that will shape the field in coming years. Written by leading experts in the field, it places the exciting new results emerging from diffusion imaging in the context of classical anatomical techniques to show where diffusion studies might offer unique insights and where potential limitations lie. Fully revised and updated edition of the first comprehensive reference on a powerful technique in brain imaging Covers all aspects of a diffusion MRI study from acquisition through analysis to interpretation, and from fundamental theory to cutting-edge developments New chapters covering connectomics, advanced diffusion acquisition, artifact removal, and applications to the neonatal brain Provides practical advice on running an experiment Includes discussion of applications in psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery, and basic neuroscience.

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Yigal H. Ehrlich .. [et al

This volume is an outcome of a satellite symposium held on November 4th and 5th, 1978, at the Missouri Institute of Psychiatry, St. Louis, in conjunction with the eighth annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. The symposium was planned and organized in order to provide information which may help in narrowing the gap between data obtained by investigators engaged in basic neuroscience research and the clinical implications of these findings. The empirical introduction of psychopharmacological agents to clinical use in the early 1950's facilitated investigations aimed at elucidating basic mechanisms that underlie brain function and behavior. In recent years, we have witnessed developments in the opposite direction; discoveries in the laboratories of researchers in the basic neurosciences have produced new approaches in treatment of the mentally ill patient. Receptors, the existence of which had heretofore been largely based on hypotheses, have been shown as entities which can be identified, isolated, and studied in the test tube. The complexity of receptor function has become apparent. In addition to containing binding sites for a specific neurotransmitter, the receptor exists as part of a macromolecular complex the activity of which may be modulated by neuroactive peptides and mediated by the generation of cyclic nucleotides. The cyclic nucleotides appear to exert their physiological effects by regulating protein phosphorylation-dephosphorylation cycles. Different specific phosphoproteins control metabolic events in the cell interior. In addition, membrane-bound phosphoproteins may play a role in the regulation of receptor function, and this process may be regulated by neuropeptides. Thus, the receptor, when studied as a functional entity, may be analyzed as a multiplicity of interactions between binding sites, transmitters, modulators, mediators and specifiers in the nervous system. This book is concerned with recent studies which have sought to define the roles of neuropeptides, cyclic nucleotides, and phosphoproteins in neural function. These subjects are introduced in the first section of the volume, their potential mechanisms of action are discussed in a second section, and a third section is devoted to studies on the relevance of these systems to the etiology and treatment of some neuropsychiatric disorders. The experimental approaches described by the authors include physiological, neurochemical, pharmacological, behavioral, and clinical investigations, and clearly demonstrate the multi-disciplinary nature of current research in neuroscience.

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David Bowers, Allan House, David Owens

In this book the authors introduce health research to junior doctors, nurses, therapists, health educators, and allied health professionals with little or no research experience, leading them through the process of study design, data collection and analysis, writing up results, and submission for publication, and covering both quantitative and qualitative projects.

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Samuel A. Safran

Understanding the structural and thermodynamic properties of surfaces, interfaces, and membranes is important for both fundamental and practical reasons. Complex fluids and solids, important in the development of new materials, cannot be designed using trial and error methods due to the multiplicity of components and parameters. While these materials can sometimes be analyzed in terms of microscopic mixtures, it is often conceptually simpler to regard them as dispersions and to focus on the properties of the internal interfaces found in these systems. The basic physics centers on the properties of quasi-two-dimensional systems embedded in the three-dimensional world, thus exhibiting phenomena which do not exist in bulk materials. . This approach is the basis behind the theoretical presentation of Statistical Thermodynamics of Surfaces, Interfaces, and Membranes. Focusing on the large-scale properties of these systems, these notes are meant to supplement the usual treatments in books on colloid and interface science. The approach adapted here first presents the traditional approach and then investigates how thermal fluctuations affect the simple description of the system. This philosophy is used throughout to treat the rich diversity of phenomena investigated in the field of colloid and interface science such as interfacial tension, the roughening transition, wetting, interactions between surfaces, membrane elasticity, and self-assembly. The presentation is that of a set of lecture notes (used in graduate courses taught by the author) including worked examples and further problems. This book is aimed at physicists, physical chemists, chemical engineers, and materials scientists who are interested in the statistical mechanics that underlie the macroscopic, thermodynamic properties of surfaces, interfaces, and membranes. While the primary focus of the book is on the systems important in colloid and interface science, a more general goal is to introduce the reader to several theoretical methods that are useful in applications of statistical mechanics to materials. It is thus the hope that the depth and breadth of coverage will introduce the condensed matter physicist to colloid science and present to the physical chemist or materials scientist, who may already be familiar with the underlying phenomena, a modern theoretical perspective.