TY - JOUR A1 - Winter, Patrick A1 - Kampf, Thomas A1 - Helluy, Xavier A1 - Gutjahr, Fabian T. A1 - Meyer, Cord B. A1 - Rommel, Eberhard A1 - Bauer, Wolfgang R. A1 - Jakob, Peter M. A1 - Herold, Volker T1 - Fast retrospectively triggered local pulse-wave velocity measurements in mice with CMR-microscopy using a radial trajectory JF - Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance N2 - Background The aortic pulse-wave velocity (PWV) is an important indicator of cardiovascular risk. In recent studies MRI methods have been developed to measure this parameter noninvasively in mice. Present techniques require additional hardware for cardiac and respiratory gating. In this work a robust self-gated measurement of the local PWV in mice without the need of triggering probes is proposed. Methods The local PWV of 6-months-old wild-type C57BL/6J mice (n=6) was measured in the abdominal aorta with a retrospectively triggered radial Phase Contrast (PC) MR sequence using the flow-area (QA) method. A navigator signal was extracted from the CMR data of highly asymmetric radial projections with short repetition time (TR=3 ms) and post-processed with high-pass and low-pass filters for retrospective cardiac and respiratory gating. The self-gating signal was used for a reconstruction of high-resolution Cine frames of the aortic motion. To assess the local PWV the volume flow Q and the cross-sectional area A of the aorta were determined. The results were compared with the values measured with a triggered Cartesian and an undersampled triggered radial PC-Cine sequence. Results In all examined animals a self-gating signal could be extracted and used for retrospective breath-gating and PC-Cine reconstruction. With the non-triggered measurement PWV values of 2.3±0.2 m/s were determined. These values are in agreement with those measured with the triggered Cartesian (2.4±0.2 m/s) and the triggered radial (2.3±0.2 m/s) measurement. Due to the strong robustness of the radial trajectory against undersampling an acceleration of more than two relative to the prospectively triggered Cartesian sampling could be achieved with the retrospective method. Conclusion With the radial flow-encoding sequence the extraction of a self-gating signal is feasible. The retrospective method enables a robust and fast measurement of the local PWV without the need of additional trigger hardware. KW - pulse-wave velocity KW - mouse KW - self-gating KW - phase-contrast CMR KW - non-triggered KW - retrospective KW - radial KW - aorta Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-96602 UR - http://jcmr-online.com/content/15/1/88 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Gotschy, Alexander A1 - Bauer, Wolfgang R. A1 - Winter, Patrick A1 - Nordbeck, Peter A1 - Rommel, Eberhard A1 - Jakob, Peter M. A1 - Herold, Volker T1 - Local versus global aortic pulse wave velocity in early atherosclerosis: An animal study in ApoE\(^{-/-}\) mice using ultrahigh field MRI JF - PLoS ONE N2 - Increased aortic stiffness is known to be associated with atherosclerosis and has a predictive value for cardiovascular events. This study aims to investigate the local distribution of early arterial stiffening due to initial atherosclerotic lesions. Therefore, global and local pulse wave velocity (PWV) were measured in ApoE\(^{-/-}\) and wild type (WT) mice using ultrahigh field MRI. For quantification of global aortic stiffness, a new multi-point transit-time (TT) method was implemented and validated to determine the global PWV in the murine aorta. Local aortic stiffness was measured by assessing the local PWV in the upper abdominal aorta, using the flow/area (QA) method. Significant differences between age matched ApoE\(^{-/-}\) and WT mice were determined for global and local PWV measurements (global PWV: ApoE\(^{-/-}\): 2.7 ±0.2m/s vs WT: 2.1±0.2m/s, P<0.03; local PWV: ApoE\(^{-/-}\): 2.9±0.2m/s vs WT: 2.2±0.2m/s, P<0.03). Within the WT mouse group, the global PWV correlated well with the local PWV in the upper abdominal aorta (R\(^2\) = 0.75, P<0.01), implying a widely uniform arterial elasticity. In ApoE\(^{-/-}\) animals, however, no significant correlation between individual local and global PWV was present (R\(^2\) = 0.07, P = 0.53), implying a heterogeneous distribution of vascular stiffening in early atherosclerosis. The assessment of global PWV using the new multi-point TT measurement technique was validated against a pressure wire measurement in a vessel phantom and showed excellent agreement. The experimental results demonstrate that vascular stiffening caused by early atherosclerosis is unequally distributed over the length of large vessels. This finding implies that assessing heterogeneity of arterial stiffness by multiple local measurements of PWV might be more sensitive than global PWV to identify early atherosclerotic lesions. KW - MRI KW - Atherosclerosis KW - Aorta KW - Stiffness KW - Measurement KW - Time measurement KW - Magnetic resonance imaging KW - Mouse models KW - Systole Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-171824 VL - 12 IS - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Winter, Patrick M. A1 - Andelovic, Kristina A1 - Kampf, Thomas A1 - Hansmann, Jan A1 - Jakob, Peter Michael A1 - Bauer, Wolfgang Rudolf A1 - Zernecke, Alma A1 - Herold, Volker T1 - Simultaneous measurements of 3D wall shear stress and pulse wave velocity in the murine aortic arch JF - Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance N2 - Purpose Wall shear stress (WSS) and pulse wave velocity (PWV) are important parameters to characterize blood flow in the vessel wall. Their quantification with flow-sensitive phase-contrast (PC) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), however, is time-consuming. Furthermore, the measurement of WSS requires high spatial resolution, whereas high temporal resolution is necessary for PWV measurements. For these reasons, PWV and WSS are challenging to measure in one CMR session, making it difficult to directly compare these parameters. By using a retrospective approach with a flexible reconstruction framework, we here aimed to simultaneously assess both PWV and WSS in the murine aortic arch from the same 4D flow measurement. Methods Flow was measured in the aortic arch of 18-week-old wildtype (n = 5) and ApoE\(^{−/−}\) mice (n = 5) with a self-navigated radial 4D-PC-CMR sequence. Retrospective data analysis was used to reconstruct the same dataset either at low spatial and high temporal resolution (PWV analysis) or high spatial and low temporal resolution (WSS analysis). To assess WSS, the aortic lumen was labeled by semi-automatically segmenting the reconstruction with high spatial resolution. WSS was determined from the spatial velocity gradients at the lumen surface. For calculation of the PWV, segmentation data was interpolated along the temporal dimension. Subsequently, PWV was quantified from the through-plane flow data using the multiple-points transit-time method. Reconstructions with varying frame rates and spatial resolutions were performed to investigate the influence of spatiotemporal resolution on the PWV and WSS quantification. Results 4D flow measurements were conducted in an acquisition time of only 35 min. Increased peak flow and peak WSS values and lower errors in PWV estimation were observed in the reconstructions with high temporal resolution. Aortic PWV was significantly increased in ApoE\(^{−/−}\) mice compared to the control group (1.7 ± 0.2 versus 2.6 ± 0.2 m/s, p < 0.001). Mean WSS magnitude values averaged over the aortic arch were (1.17 ± 0.07) N/m\(^2\) in wildtype mice and (1.27 ± 0.10) N/m\(^2\) in ApoE\(^{−/−}\) mice. Conclusion The post processing algorithm using the flexible reconstruction framework developed in this study permitted quantification of global PWV and 3D-WSS in a single acquisition. The possibility to assess both parameters in only 35 min will markedly improve the analyses and information content of in vivo measurements. KW - 4D flow KW - pulse wave velocity KW - wall shear stress KW - radial KW - self-navigation KW - mouse KW - aortic arch KW - atherosclerosis KW - mice KW - flow KW - plaque KW - CMR KW - quantification KW - microscopy Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-259152 VL - 23 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wohlwend, Michael R. A1 - Craven, Dylan A1 - Weigelt, Patrick A1 - Seebens, Hanno A1 - Winter, Marten A1 - Kreft, Holger A1 - Zurell, Damaris A1 - Sarmento Cabral, Juliano A1 - Essl, Franz A1 - van Kleunen, Mark A1 - Pergl, Jan A1 - Pyšek, Petr A1 - Knight, Tiffany M. T1 - Anthropogenic and environmental drivers shape diversity of naturalized plants across the Pacific JF - Diversity and Distributions N2 - Aim The Pacific exhibits an exceptional number of naturalized plant species, but the drivers of this high diversity and the associated compositional patterns remain largely unknown. Here, we aim to (a) improve our understanding of introduction and establishment processes and (b) evaluate whether this information is sufficient to create scientific conservation tools, such as watchlists. Location Islands in the Pacific Ocean, excluding larger islands such as New Zealand, Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. Methods We combined information from the most up‐to‐date data sources to quantify naturalized plant species richness and turnover across island groups and investigate the effects of anthropogenic, biogeographic and climate drivers on these patterns. In total, we found 2,672 naturalized plant species across 481 islands and 50 island groups, with a total of 11,074 records. Results Most naturalized species were restricted to few island groups, and most island groups have a low number of naturalized species. Island groups with few naturalized species were characterized by a set of widespread naturalized species. Several plant families that contributed many naturalized species globally also did so in the Pacific, particularly Fabaceae and Poaceae. However, many families were significantly over‐ or under‐represented in the Pacific naturalized flora compared to other regions of the world. Naturalized species richness increased primarily with increased human activity and island altitude/area, whereas similarity between island groups in temperature along with richness differences was most important for beta diversity. Main conclusions The distribution and richness of naturalized species can be explained by a small set of drivers. The Pacific region contains many naturalized plant species also naturalized in other regions in the world, but our results highlight key differences such as a stronger role of anthropogenic drivers in shaping diversity patterns. Our results establish a basis for predicting and preventing future naturalizations in a threatened biodiversity hotspot. KW - anthropogenic drivers KW - beta diversity KW - island biogeography KW - naturalized species KW - Pacific Ocean KW - plant invasion Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-239925 VL - 27 IS - 6 SP - 1120 EP - 1133 ER -