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Abstract #3331

Quantitative MT provides evidence for neuroinflammation in the brain following Interferon- treatment

Nicholas G Dowell 1 , Neil A Harrison 1 , Ella Cooper 1 , and Mara Cercignani 1

1 Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School, Falmer, Brighton and Hove, United Kingdom

There is growing evidence that neuroinflammation has a pathogenic role in psychiatric illness, although the presence of subtle inflammation in the brain has not been widely studied. Inflammation can be induced by the administration of a cytokine such as interferon-alpha and although this inflammation is likely to be present in the brain, conventional MR approaches are not sensitive to such subtle changes. In this study, we use qMT to show that the MT transfer rate (kf) is sensitive to changes in the brain following inflammation with interferon and this may enable the study of the pathogenesis of psychiatric illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression.

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