BY ANA PENA
Scientists have found that a usually-overlooked signal from MRI scans indicates brain regions of nerve cell death and may help in the understanding of brain development and the early diagnosis of brain disorders like multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer’s disease, and autism.
The signal reflects the type and amount of nerve cells and how interconnected they are with one another, which can help detect brain deterioration even before people experience symptoms of brain disease.
The study, “Genetically defined cellular correlates of the baseline brain MRI signal,” was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Understanding how the different cell types and molecules relate with the many functions of the human brain is a major goal in neuroscience.
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) has revolutionized the field, providing researchers with a way to study the human brain in action. Still, many questions remain unanswered about how MRI data relates to the brain’s underlying cellular composition and activity, both during normal development or in brain injury and illness.
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