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Scan Times

An MGH Radiology Research Newsletter

February 2023

Happy February, everyone. February is both American Heart Month and the month in which many around the world celebrate Valentine's Day, so we thought we'd take a moment to recognize the convergence of the two. Which means, naturally, that we decided to drop the needle on the Bee Gees classic, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?"


The song was almost certainly intended as a love song, but implicit in the title is another possible question: namely, how can we help ensure cardiovascular health in the patient populations we serve. In an article described below, we look at five recent studies by Radiology researchers at Mass General that sought to do just that by harnessing the power of novel imaging and related technologies. And of course, this is but a small sampling of the amazing cardiovascular imaging work underway in the department.


A few other items you won't want to miss: First, Jyrki Ahveninen, PhD, recipient of the 2023 Jim Thrall, MD Mentoring Award - Research Faculty, shares a few thoughts about his experiences with mentoring. Also, February saw the launch of an exciting podcast from the Mass General Research Institute: Ciencia en tu Idioma, a new series with conversations about science and medicine conducted in Spanish. In the inaugural episode, they talk with Radiology researcher Efren Flores, MD about increasing access to scientific information by making it available in different languages.


See you back here next month!

Bruce Rosen, Vice-Chair for Research

In This Issue

Q&A: Jyrki Ahveninen, PhD, Recipient of the 2023 Jim Thrall, MD Mentoring Award - Research Faculty

Ciencia en tu Idioma: Efren Flores, MD

How You Can Mend a Broken Heart: Emerging imaging technologies advance cardiovascular care

The Martinos Center's Got Talent - Video!

Research Update: Deep-Learning AI Could Predict Heart Disease Morbidity from Chest X-Ray

Research Update: Sparse Brain Activity Patterns May Underlie Human Cognition

Select Publications from January 2023

Q&A: Jyrki Ahveninen, PhD, Recipient of the 2023 Jim Thrall, MD Mentoring Award - Research Faculty

The Jim Thrall, MD Mentoring Award was established to recognize and honor mentoring contributions of faculty who have demonstrated sustained interest and success in mentoring junior faculty members and trainees. Last month, the Martinos Center's Jyrki Ahveninen, PhD received the award for Research Faculty. The honor was, of course, entirely well deserved. Here are just a few of the comments from those who nominated him.


  • "My future career as a physician-scientist has permanently been impacted by Dr. Ahveninen’s mentorship. He has given me the ability to develop a foundational understanding and technical skillset in neuroimaging acquisition and analysis."
  • "Prof. Ahveninen’s impact on my career has been critical in determining my current and future career. By creating a supportive atmosphere and respectful lab environment, he has boosted my self-esteem and believes in my skills to become a successful scientist."
  • "He is always willing to listen to my thoughts and career plans and has introduced me to several people that are important to my career. Prof. Ahveninen is a model supervisor, and I believe that his upstanding actions and affirmation of my experiences hold considerable weight."


We checked in with Dr. Ahveninen about his experiences with mentoring. Here's what we learned. (See the second research update below — "Commentary: Sparse Brain Activity Patterns May Underlie Human Cognition" — to learn more about his work.)


Tell us about some of the mentoring you've done in your lab.

 

We do basic research on how the human brain enables perception, attention, and memory, and we develop new ways to investigate these functions. My colleagues I work with to achieve these goals include graduate coordinators aiming at graduate schools, postdoctoral fellows pursuing future academical careers, and junior faculty members in the process of launching their own research programs. We consist of cognitive scientists, electrical engineers, biomedical engineers, computer scientists, and (current and future) MD scientists.


What do you enjoy most about mentoring?

 

Being able to work with, and to learn from, highly talented and motivated individuals with very diverse backgrounds and professional specializations; having the opportunity to witness their achievements and moments of success.


Do you have a philosophy of mentoring?


Ideally, mentoring is about helping your colleagues find their own way and realize their potential as individuals, in the pursuit of common longer-term scientific goals as a team. My continuing goal is to develop my listening, communication, and focusing abilities to achieve this ideal.


(This Q&A also appears on the Martinos Center website.)

Ciencia en tu Idioma: Efren Flores, MD

‘’Ciencia en tu idioma’’ is a new podcast created by the Mass General Research Institute for important conversations about science and medicine in Spanish!


This podcast was created with the idea that access to scientific information should not be limited by The MGRI team sought to find a creative way to bring people closer to science by creating a space where experts talk with them in Spanish about the importance of research and why it is crucial to include diverse patient populations in their work.

The podcast embodies the idea of bringing people closer to science by having meaningful conversations with relatable experts.In the first episode, the Research Institute chats with Efren Flores, MD, a physician-scientist in the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital, about the importance of having research information available in different languages to increase access to scientific information and reduce barriers.


Listen to the episode here.

How You Can Mend a Broken Heart: Emerging imaging technologies advance cardiovascular care

In 1971, on the opening track of their album Trafalgar, pop group the Bee Gees posed the immortal question: how can you mend a broken heart? The Brothers Gibb, of course, were speaking figuratively. The song falls squarely in the “how can I live after I’ve lost my love” tradition.


Here at Massachusetts General Hospital, researchers often also approach the question literally.


To celebrate Valentines Day, the Mass General Research Institute explored five recent studies from the Department of Radiology where researchers sought new ways to help reduce the incidence of a broken heart (and to ensure a healthy cardiovascular system). Read about the studies here.

The Martinos Center's Got Talent - Video!

Last month, the MGH Martinos Center held its first-ever talent show, aptly titled, "The Martinos Center's Got Talent." Much of the show was recorded, so we can now share video from the event. Take a look here.

Research Updates

Deep-Learning AI Could Predict Heart Disease Morbidity from Chest X-Ray


Jakob Weiss, MD, a radiologist in the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC), and colleagues are developing a new option for predicting risk of death from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD): a deep-learning AI model that searches chest X-ray images to identify patterns associated with ASCVD risk.


Commentary: Sparse Brain Activity Patterns May Underlie Human Cognition


The Martinos Center's Jyrki Ahveninen, PhD, and colleagues believe sparse brain activity, where only a few neurons in a population fire at a given time, might contribute to the fingerprint patterns of activity evident in multi-voxel pattern analysis results from functional MRI—and give rise to perceptual, emotional and cognitive functions.

Select Papers from January 2023

1: Abraham P, Balthazar P, Reid NJ, Flores EJ, Narayan AK. The Digital Divide in Radiology: Computer Use for Health Care-related Tasks and Breast Cancer Screening. Radiology. 2023 Jan;306(1):218-219. doi: 10.1148/radiol.220796. Epub 2022 Aug 30. PMID: 36040332.



2: Alho J, Khan S, Mamashli F, Perrachione TK, Losh A, McGuiggan NM, Graham S, Nayal Z, Joseph RM, Hämäläinen MS, Bharadwaj H, Kenet T. Atypical cortical processing of bottom-up speech binding cues in children with autism spectrum disorders. Neuroimage Clin. 2023 Jan 22;37:103336. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2023.103336. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36724734; PMCID: PMC9898310.



3: Alosco ML, Su Y, Stein TD, Protas H, Cherry JD, Adler CH, Balcer LJ, Bernick C, Pulukuri SV, Abdolmohammadi B, Coleman MJ, Palmisano JN, Tripodis Y, Mez J, Rabinovici GD, Marek KL, Beach TG, Johnson KA, Huber BR, Koerte I, Lin AP, Bouix S, Cummings JL, Shenton ME, Reiman EM, McKee AC, Stern RA; DIAGNOSE C. T. E. Research Project. Associations between near end-of-life flortaucipir PET and postmortem CTE-related tau neuropathology in six former American football players. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2023 Jan;50(2):435-452. doi: 10.1007/s00259-022-05963-x. Epub 2022 Sep 24. PMID: 36152064; PMCID: PMC9816291.



4: Boato F, Guan X, Zhu Y, Ryu Y, Voutounou M, Rynne C, Freschlin CR, Zumbo P, Betel D, Matho K, Makarov SN, Wu Z, Son YJ, Nummenmaa A, Huang JZ, Edwards DJ, Zhong J. Activation of MAP2K signaling by genetic engineering or HF-rTMS promotes corticospinal axon sprouting and functional regeneration. Sci Transl Med. 2023 Jan 4;15(677):eabq6885. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq6885. Epub 2023 Jan 4. PMID: 36599003.



5: Brink JA, Hricak H. Radiology 2040. Radiology. 2023 Jan;306(1):69-72. doi: 10.1148/radiol.222594. PMID: 36534608; PMCID: PMC9792708.



6: Brugarolas P, Wilks MQ, Noel J, Kaiser JA, Vesper DR, Ramos-Torres KM, Guehl NJ, Macdonald-Soccorso MT, Sun Y, Rice PA, Yokell DL, Lim R, Normandin MD, El Fakhri G. Human biodistribution and radiation dosimetry of the demyelination tracer [18F]3F4AP. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2023 Jan;50(2):344-351. doi: 10.1007/s00259-022-05980-w. Epub 2022 Oct 5. PMID: 36197499; PMCID: PMC9816249.



7: Ehrenberg AJ, Kelberman MA, Liu KY, Dahl MJ, Weinshenker D, Falgàs N, Dutt S, Mather M, Ludwig M, Betts MJ, Winer JR, Teipel S, Weigand AJ, Eschenko O, Hämmerer D, Leiman M, Counts SE, Shine JM, Robertson IH, Levey AI, Lancini E, Son G, Schneider C, Egroo MV, Liguori C, Wang Q, Vazey EM, Rodriguez-Porcel F, Haag L, Bondi MW, Vanneste S, Freeze WM, Yi YJ, Maldinov M, Gatchel J, Satpati A, Babiloni C, Kremen WS, Howard R, Jacobs HIL, Grinberg LT. Priorities for research on neuromodulatory subcortical systems in Alzheimer's disease: Position paper from the NSS PIA of ISTAART. Alzheimers Dement. 2023 Jan 15. doi: 10.1002/alz.12937. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36642985.



8: Fazal Z, Gomez DEP, Llera A, Marques JPRF, Beck T, Poser BA, Norris DG. A comparison of multiband and multiband multiecho gradient-echo EPI for task fMRI at 3 T. Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Jan;44(1):82-93. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26081. Epub 2022 Oct 5. PMID: 36196782; PMCID: PMC9783458.



9: Groenewold NA, Bas-Hoogendam JM, Amod AR, Laansma MA, Van Velzen LS, Aghajani M, Hilbert K, Oh H, Salas R, Jackowski AP, Pan PM, Salum GA, Blair JR, Blair KS, Hirsch J, Pantazatos SP, Schneier FR, Talati A, Roelofs K, Volman I, Blanco- Hinojo L, Cardoner N, Pujol J, Beesdo-Baum K, Ching CRK, Thomopoulos SI, Jansen A, Kircher T, Krug A, Nenadić I, Stein F, Dannlowski U, Grotegerd D, Lemke H, Meinert S, Winter A, Erb M, Kreifelts B, Gong Q, Lui S, Zhu F, Mwangi B, Soares JC, Wu MJ, Bayram A, Canli M, Tükel R, Westenberg PM, Heeren A, Cremers HR, Hofmann D, Straube T, Doruyter AGG, Lochner C, Peterburs J, Van Tol MJ, Gur RE, Kaczkurkin AN, Larsen B, Satterthwaite TD, Filippi CA, Gold AL, Harrewijn A, Zugman A, Bülow R, Grabe HJ, Völzke H, Wittfeld K, Böhnlein J, Dohm K, Kugel H, Schrammen E, Zwanzger P, Leehr EJ, Sindermann L, Ball TM, Fonzo GA, Paulus MP, Simmons A, Stein MB, Klumpp H, Phan KL, Furmark T, Månsson KNT, Manzouri A, Avery SN, Blackford JU, Clauss JA, Feola B, Harper JC, Sylvester CM, Lueken U, Veltman DJ, Winkler AM, Jahanshad N, Pine DS, Thompson PM, Stein DJ, Van der Wee NJA. Volume of subcortical brain regions in social anxiety disorder: mega- analytic results from 37 samples in the ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group. Mol Psychiatry. 2023 Jan 19. doi: 10.1038/s41380-022-01933-9. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36653677.



10: Guehl NJ, Wooten DW, Yokell DL, Moon SH, Dhaynaut M, Katz S, Moody KA, Gharagouzloo C, Kas A, Johnson KA, Fakhri GE, Normandin MD. Correction to: Evaluation of pharmacokinetic modeling strategies for in-vivo quantification of tau with the radiotracer [18F]MK6240 in human subjects. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2023 Jan 5. doi: 10.1007/s00259-022-06102-2. Epub ahead of print. Erratum for: Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2019 Sep;46(10):2099-2111. PMID: 36604327.



11: Jacobs HIL, Becker JA, Kwong K, Munera D, Ramirez-Gomez L, Engels-Domínguez N, Sanchez JS, Vila-Castelar C, Baena A, Sperling RA, Johnson KA, Lopera F, Quiroz YT. Waning locus coeruleus integrity precedes cortical tau accrual in preclinical autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimers Dement. 2023 Jan;19(1):169-180. doi: 10.1002/alz.12656. Epub 2022 Mar 17. PMID: 35298083; PMCID: PMC9481982.



12: Katsumi Y, Putcha D, Eckbo R, Wong B, Quimby M, McGinnis S, Touroutoglou A, Dickerson BC. Anterior dorsal attention network tau drives visual attention deficits in posterior cortical atrophy. Brain. 2023 Jan 5;146(1):295-306. doi: 10.1093/brain/awac245. PMID: 36237170.



13: Keppel C, Weisenberger A, Atanasijevic Contractor T, Wang S, Zubal G, Buchsbaum J, Brechbiel Emeritus M, Capala J, Escorcia F, Obcemea C, Boehnlein A, Heyes G, Bourne P, Cherry S, Colby E, El Fakhri G, Gillo J, Gropler R, Gueye P, Tourassi G, Peggs S, Woody C. The United States department of energy and national institutes of health collaboration: medical care advances via discovery in physical sciences. Med Phys. 2023 Jan 27. doi: 10.1002/mp.16252. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36705550.



14: Liu G, Ni C, Zhan J, Li W, Luo J, Liao Z, Locascio JJ, Xian W, Chen L, Pei Z, Corvol JC, Maple-Grødem J, Campbell MC, Elbaz A, Lesage S, Brice A, Hung AY, Schwarzschild MA, Hayes MT, Wills AM, Ravina B, Shoulson I, Taba P, Kõks S, Beach TG, Cormier-Dequaire F, Alves G, Tysnes OB, Perlmutter JS, Heutink P, van Hilten JJ, Barker RA, Williams-Gray CH, Scherzer CR; International Genetics of Parkinson Disease Progression (IGPP) Consortium. Mitochondrial haplogroups and cognitive progression in Parkinson's disease. Brain. 2023 Jan 5;146(1):42-49. doi: 10.1093/brain/awac327. PMID: 36343661.



15: Liu X, Xing F, El Fakhri G, Woo J. Memory consistent unsupervised off-the- shelf model adaptation for source-relaxed medical image segmentation. Med Image Anal. 2023 Jan;83:102641. doi: 10.1016/j.media.2022.102641. Epub 2022 Oct 1. PMID: 36265264.



16: Li P, Lennartz S, Consul N, Moy L, Lee SI. Top Covers of the Centennial. Radiology. 2023 Jan;306(1):64-68. doi: 10.1148/radiol.229033. PMID: 36534609.



17: Maleki F, Ovens K, Gupta R, Reinhold C, Spatz A, Forghani R. Generalizability of Machine Learning Models: Quantitative Evaluation of Three Methodological Pitfalls. Radiol Artif Intell. 2022 Nov 16;5(1):e220028. doi: 10.1148/ryai.220028. PMID: 36721408; PMCID: PMC9885377.



18: McLoud TC, Little BP. Thoracic Radiology: Recent Developments and Future Trends. Radiology. 2023 Feb;306(2):e223121. doi: 10.1148/radiol.223121. Epub 2023 Jan 17. PMID: 36648345.



19: Medani T, Garcia-Prieto J, Tadel F, Antonakakis M, Erdbrügger T, Höltershinken M, Mead W, Schrader S, Joshi A, Engwer C, Wolters CH, Mosher JC, Leahy RM. Brainstorm-DUNEuro: An integrated and user-friendly Finite Element Method for modeling electromagnetic brain activity. Neuroimage. 2023 Feb 15;267:119851. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119851. Epub 2023 Jan 1. PMID: 36599389.



20: Nepal P, Bagga B, Feng L, Chandarana H. Respiratory Motion Management in Abdominal MRI: Radiology In Training. Radiology. 2023 Jan;306(1):47-53. doi: 10.1148/radiol.220448. Epub 2022 Aug 23. PMID: 35997609; PMCID: PMC9792710.



21: Ntolkeras G, Jeong H, Zöllei L, Dmytriw AA, Purvaziri A, Lev MH, Grant PE, Bonmassar G. A high-resolution pediatric female whole-body numerical model with comparison to a male model. Phys Med Biol. 2023 Jan 13;68(2). doi: 10.1088/1361-6560/aca950. PMID: 36595234.



22: Ortega-Cruz D, Uceda-Heras A, Iglesias JE, Zea-Sevilla MA, Strange B, Rabano A. A novel histological staging of hippocampal sclerosis that is evident in gray matter loss in vivo. Alzheimers Dement. 2023 Jan 24. doi: 10.1002/alz.12942. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36691755.



23: Ruberg FL, Baggish AL, Hays AG, Jerosch-Herold M, Kim J, Ordovas KG, Reddy G, Shenoy C, Weinsaft JW, Woodard PK. Utilization of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Resumption of Athletic Activities Following COVID-19 Infection: An Expert Consensus Document on Behalf of the American Heart Association Council on Cardiovascular Radiology and Intervention Leadership and Endorsed by the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. Circ Cardiovasc Imaging. 2023 Jan;16(1):e014106. doi: 10.1161/CIRCIMAGING.122.014106. Epub 2022 Dec 21. PMID: 36541203; PMCID: PMC9848221.



24: Schwamm LH, Kamel H, Granger CB, Piccini JP, Katz JM, Sethi PP, Sidorov EV, Kasner SE, Silverman SB, Merriam TT, Franco N, Ziegler PD, Bernstein RA; STROKE AF Investigators. Predictors of Atrial Fibrillation in Patients With Stroke Attributed to Large- or Small-Vessel Disease: A Prespecified Secondary Analysis of the STROKE AF Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Neurol. 2023 Jan 1;80(1):99-103. doi: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2022.4038. PMID: 36374508; PMCID: PMC9664367.



25: Shams S, Prokopiou P, Esmaelbeigi A, Mitsis GD, Chen JJ. Modeling the dynamics of cerebrovascular reactivity to carbon dioxide in fMRI under task and resting-state conditions. Neuroimage. 2023 Jan;265:119758. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119758. Epub 2022 Nov 25. PMID: 36442732.



26: Sherrid MV, Bernard S, Tripathi N, Patel Y, Modi V, Axel L, Talebi S, Ghoshhajra BB, Sanborn DY, Saric M, Adlestein E, Alvarez IC, Xia Y, Swistel DG, Massera D, Fifer MA, Kim B. Apical Aneurysms and Mid-Left Ventricular Obstruction in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. JACC Cardiovasc Imaging. 2023 Jan 11:S1936-878X(22)00717-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmg.2022.11.013. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36681586.



27: Stoustrup P, Resnick CM, Abramowicz S, Pedersen TK, Michelotti A, Küseler A, Koos B, Verna C, Nordal EB, Granquist EJ, Halbig JM, Kristensen KD, Kaban LB, Arvidsson LZ, Spiegel L, Stoll ML, Lerman MA, Glerup M, Defabianis P, Frid P, Alstergren P, Cron RQ, Ringold S, Nørholt SE, Peltomaki T, Larheim TA, Herlin T, Peacock ZS, Kellenberger CJ, Twilt M; Temporomandibular Joint Juvenile Arthritis Working Group. Management of Orofacial Manifestations of Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis: Interdisciplinary Consensus-Based Recommendations. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2023 Jan;75(1):4-14. doi: 10.1002/art.42338. Epub 2022 Nov 25. PMID: 36041065.



28: Vicentini JRT, Habibollahi S, Staffa SJ, Simeone FJ, Kheterpal AB, Graeber AR, Bredella MA, Chang CY. Relationship of Imaging-guided Corticosteroid Injections to COVID-19 Incidence in the Pandemic Recovery Period. Radiology. 2023 Jan;306(1):237-243. doi: 10.1148/radiol.220271. Epub 2022 Jul 5. PMID: 35787202; PMCID: PMC9341274.



29: Waddington DEJ, Hindley N, Koonjoo N, Chiu C, Reynolds T, Liu PZY, Zhu B, Bhutto D, Paganelli C, Keall PJ, Rosen MS. Real-time radial reconstruction with domain transform manifold learning for MRI-guided radiotherapy. Med Phys. 2023 Jan 16. doi: 10.1002/mp.16224. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36646444.



30: Weber B, Wallace ZS, Parks S, Cook C, Huck DM, Garshick M, Brown JM, Divakaran S, Hainer J, Dorbala S, Blankstein R, Liao KP, Aghayev A, Choi HK, Di Carli M. Association Between Systemic Vasculitis and Coronary Microvascular Dysfunction in the Absence of Obstructive Coronary Artery Disease. Circ Cardiovasc Imaging. 2023 Jan;16(1):e014940. doi: 10.1161/CIRCIMAGING.122.014940. Epub 2023 Jan 17. PMID: 36649456.



31: Wheelock MD, Strain JF, Mansfield P, Tu JC, Tanenbaum A, Preische O, Chhatwal JP, Cash DM, Cruchaga C, Fagan AM, Fox NC, Graff-Radford NR, Hassenstab J, Jack CR, Karch CM, Levin J, McDade EM, Perrin RJ, Schofield PR, Xiong C, Morris JC, Bateman RJ, Jucker M, Benzinger TLS, Ances BM, Eggebrecht AT, Gordon BA; Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network. Brain network decoupling with increased serum neurofilament and reduced cognitive function in Alzheimer's disease. Brain. 2023 Jan 10:awac498. doi: 10.1093/brain/awac498. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36625756.



32: Yang X, Lin N, Wang L. Situation updating during discourse comprehension recruits right posterior portion of the multiple-demand network. Hum Brain Mapp. 2023 Jan 5. doi: 10.1002/hbm.26198. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36602295.



33: Zanon Zotin MC, Yilmaz P, Sveikata L, Schoemaker D, van Veluw SJ, Etherton MR, Charidimou A, Greenberg SM, Duering M, Viswanathan A. Peak Width of Skeletonized Mean Diffusivity: A Neuroimaging Marker for White Matter Injury. Radiology. 2023 Jan 24:212780. doi: 10.1148/radiol.212780. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36692402.