Arterial wall enhancement is related to aging and is probably due to neovascularity in association with atherosclerotic plaques. This finding may permit assessment of intracranial atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases.

No abstract

The three-dimensional Fourier transform fast imaging with steady precession (FISP) technique was used to obtain high-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) images of the temporal bone region and to generate three-dimensional reconstructed images of the inner ear. The three-dimensional reconstructed images of the inner ear were directly synthesized from two-dimensional images of the temporal bone region by means of an external processing computer. With use of three-dimensional reconstructed images and stereoscopic observations, structures inside the temporal bone region and the positional relationship among them were easily recognized. These structures are difficult to demonstrate with two-dimensional images. This three-dimensional method was also shown to be useful for recognition of disease and anatomic malformations in the temporal bone region.

No abstract

Longitudinal relaxation times (T1) of 20 brain tumors were calculated in vivo using a whole-body magnetic resonance unit with a 0.15-T resistive magnet. Images employing standard inversion recovery pulse sequences with different intervals between the 180 degrees pulse and selective excitation pulses were compared on every point of the 256 X 256 pixel matrix. Tumor, white matter, and gray matter were sampled from each patient from the computed T1 image for T1 measurement. Astrocytomas, neurinomas, and metastatic tumors showed longer T1 values than did meningiomas. Lipomas had the shortest T1s. It is concluded that it is difficult to predict histological types of brain tumors by the measurement of T1 alone because of the wide variation in relaxation times, but measurement of T1 can be helpful in differentiating brain tumors when additional information about the patient's condition is known.