This study explores the relationship between autoantibodies and brain density reduction in SLE patients without major neuropsychiatric manifestation (NPSLE). Ninety-five NPSLE patients without obvious cerebral deficits, as determined by conventional MRI, as well as 89 control subjects, underwent high-resolution structural MRI. Whole-brain density of grey matter (GMD) and white matter (WMD) were calculated for each individual, and correlations between the brain density, symptom severity, immunosuppressive agent (ISA), and autoantibody levels were assessed. The GMD and WMD of the SLE group decreased compared to controls. GMD was negatively associated with SLE activity. The WMD of patients who received ISA treatment were higher than that in the patients who did not. The WMD of patients with anticardiolipin (ACL) or anti-SSB/La antibodies was lower than in patients without these antibodies, while the GMD was lower in patients with anti-SM or anti-U1RNP antibodies. Thus, obvious brain atrophy can occur very early even before the development of significant symptoms and specific autoantibodies might contribute to the reduction of GMD or WMD in NPSLE patients. However, ISAs showed protective effects in minimizing GMD and WMD reduction. The presence of these specific autoantibodies might help identify early brain damage in NPSLE patients.
Pubmed ID: 26090505 RIS Download
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Software tool as a cross-platform NIfTI format image viewer. Used for viewing and exporting of brain images. MRIcroGL is a variant of MRIcron.
View all literature mentionsMRIcro allows Windows and Linux computers view medical images. It is a standalone program, but includes tools to complement SPM (software that allows neuroimagers to analyze MRI, fMRI and PET images). MRIcro allows efficient viewing and exporting of brain images. In addition, it allows neuropsychologists to identify regions of interest (ROIs, e.g. lesions). MRIcro can create Analyze format headers for exporting brain images to other platforms. Some features of MRIcro are: - Converts medical images to SPM friendly Analyze format. - View Analyze format images (big or little endian). - Create Analyze format headers (big or little endian). - Create 3D regions of interest (with computed volume & intensity). - Overlap multiple regions of interest. - Rotate images to match SPM template images. - Export images to BMP, JPEG, PNG or TIF format. - Yoked images: linked viewing of multiple images (e.g. view same coordinates of PET and MRI scans). Users familiar with other Windows programs will find that this software is fairly straightforward to use. Resting the mouse cursor over a button will cause a text hint to appear over the button. However, a tutorial with a step by step guide of how to use MRIcro with SPM is available.
View all literature mentionsCell line HEp-2 is a Cancer cell line with a species of origin Homo sapiens (Human)
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