Research
Faculty Research Initiatives — Basic Research
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| Metallofullerene Nanoplatform for Imaging and Treatment of Infiltrative Tumor | |
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| Principal Investigator: | Panos P. Fatouros, Ph.D. |
| Sub-investigators: | William Broaddus, M.D., Ph.D. (Neurosurgery), Zhi-Jian Chen, Ph.D. (Neurosurgery), Frank Corwin, M.S., Helen Fillmore, Ph.D. (Neurosurgery), Scott Henderson, Ph.D. (Anatomy), Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D., Shiv Khanna, Ph.D. (Physics), Jianqiao Luo, Ph.D., Minghao Sun, Ph.D., John Wilson, Ph.D. |
| Through this five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, a multi-institution collaborative nanotechnology research team is developing an innovative endohedral metallofullerene that is expected to greatly improve the quality of MRI images of brain tumors. More importantly, the metallofullerenes are also expected to be useful for treating brain tumors by delivering radiation therapy directly to the tumor cells. | |
| An Optimized Nanosphere Platform for High Resolution Multimodality Imaging Applications | |
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| Principal Investigator: | Panos P. Fatouros, Ph.D. |
| Sub-investigators: | William Broaddus, M.D., Ph.D. (Neurosurgery), Zhi-Jian Chen, PhD (Neurosurgery), Frank Corwin, M.S., Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D., Minghao Sun, Ph.D. |
| Researchers at VCU are a key portion of this four-year nanotechnology grant awarded to Virginia Tech by the National Science Foundation. Panos P. Fatouros, Ph.D., and his team are testing metallofullerene materials developed at Virginia Tech to determine their suitability as contrast agents for MRI. | |
| An Optimized Nanosphere Platform for High Resolution Multimodality Imaging Applications | |
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| Principal Investigator: | Panos P. Fatouros, Ph.D. |
| Co-investigators: | Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D., Kenneth Kraft, Ph.D. |
| MRI is a noninvasive, non-ionizing, three-dimensional technique that can quickly characterize the entire brain anatomy and physiology. Three MRI-related techniques (Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy, Brain Water Mapping and Diffusion Tensor Imaging) have evolved as promising companions to MRI. The aim of this study is to collect spectroscopy, water mapping and diffusion tensor imaging data from the brains of normal volunteers. This data set will be used as the reference standard for future patient clinical procedures. | |
| Test-Retest Reliability for Different fMRI Stimulation Paradigms | |
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| Principal Investigator: | Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D. |
| Functional MRI is a noninvasive and relatively accessible tool by which to investigate human brain function with high spatial and temporal resolution. Its noninvasiveness and availability permit repetitive scans in the same subject. However, the reliability of functional MRI as measured by test-retest reproducibility and its ability to detect subtle changes in a subject's condition has not been established conclusively. The goal of this study is to evaluate the inter- and intra-subject reproducibility of fMRI activation to visual, auditory and olfactory tasks. Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D., hypothesizes there is considerable variability in brain response within and between healthy volunteers to repetitive sensory stimulation. In order to use fMRI to track and evaluate brain activity resulting from rehabilitation or disease progression, it is important to understand when changes in fMRI response are due to the actual pathophysiology and when they are due to natural variability. | |
| Comparison of Block vs. Event-Related Design in Olfactory fMRI Studies | |
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| Principal Investigator: | Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D. |
| Birgit Kettenmann, Ph.D., is leading a project investigating different stimulation paradigms in multirun interventional olfaction fMRI studies, since the results potentially caused by desensitization within and between runs can easily be misinterpreted as a treatment effect. The results of this study suggest that event-related olfactory fMRI paradigms are better suited for conducting multirun intervention studies than block designs. The results also suggest that habituation and patient fatigue seem to play a bigger role in multi-run block design olfactory fMRI studies. | |