Morphological and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging at ultra-high field: Clinical research applications in preeclampsia and epilepsy

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy-related hypertensive disorder, with vascular dysfunction at the center of the disease. The neurovascular unit represents the structural and functional relationship between brain tissue and blood vessels and, therefore could play a role in preeclampsia. It was found that different elements related to the neurovascular unit, such as brain function and the blood-brain barrier, but not brain volumes are altered after preeclampsia. More specifically, differences in functional brain connections were found in formerly preeclamptic women compared to parous control women. Additionally, a dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI protocol at ultra-high field was developed, which can measure the integrity of the blood-brain barrier. The blood-brain barrier regulates transport between blood vessels and brain tissue. With this protocol, a globally impaired blood-brain barrier after preeclampsia was shown. Moreover, the volumetric and functional lateralization of the hippocampal regions was investigated. It was found that volumes and function are highly symmetric in controls. However, in temporal lobe epilepsy, but not frontal lobe epilepsy, lateralization effects were observed.