White Matter Changes in Alzheimer’s Disease Revealed by Diffusion Tensor Imaging with TBSS

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder characterized by impairments in multiple cognitive domains and it is hard to diagnose in early stage because it’s not easy to recognize and develop slowly. In this study, we try to evaluate the difference of white matter between AD and health volunteers using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and try to provide some evidence for diagnose AD in early stage. Twelve elderly Chinese patients with AD and twelve healthy volunteers were recruited and underwent DTI. The raw diffusion data were dealt with the toolkit of FSL image post-processing. Fractional anisotrogy (FA) data were then carried out by using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). The result showed that the FA of cingulum, hippocampus, corticospinal tract, and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus significantly reduced in AD patients than that of volunteers. This indicated that the integrity of white matter tracts in these regions with AD was disturbed. On the other hand, the FA of other encephalic regions had no discrepancy compared with that of healthy volunteers. FA values were found reduced significantly in AD patients, especially in the posterior of the brain. These findings may provide image methods to diagnose patients with early stage of AD.

Neural Stem Cells Transfected with Leukemia Inhibitory Factor Promote Neuroprotection in a Rat Model of Cerebral Ischemia

Leukemia inhibitory factor(LIF) contributes to the neuroprotection by neural stem cells(NSCs) after ischemic stroke. Our aim was to explore whether LIFtransfected NSCs(LIF-NSCs) can ameliorate brain injury and promote neuroprotection in a rat model of cerebral ischemia. To accomplish this goal, we transfected NSCs with a lentivirus carrying the LIF gene to stably overexpress LIF. The LIF-NSCs reduced caspase 3 activation under conditions of oxygen-glucose deprivation in vitro.Transient cerebral ischemia was induced in rats by 2 h of middle cerebral artery occlusion(MCAo), and LIF-NSCs were intravenously injected at 6 h post-ischemia. LIF-NSC treatment reduced the infarction volume and improved neurological recovery. Moreover, LIF-NSCs improved glial cell regeneration and ameliorated white matter injuryin the MCAo rats. The NSCs acted as carriers and increased the expression of LIF in the lesions to protect against cerebral infarction, suggesting that LIF-NSCs could be a potential treatment for cerebral infarction.