Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Arya Haghighi L&S Sciences

SLASER & JDE Analysis for MRI

The inhibition of glutathione, a buffer which maintains redox balance in neural cells, has recently been implicated as part of the pathology of multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic and debilitating neurological disease. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy is a non-invasive technique which can quantitatively measure glutathione, amongst other metabolites, in the brain using the semi-localized by adiabatic selective refocusing sequence (SLASER) and J-Difference Editing (JDE). This proposal aims to apply this technique to image the concentration of various metabolites implicated in the regulation of redox potentials in the central nervous system on the NAC study cohort at UCSF. After development of an automatic quantification technique for metabolite concentrations, spatial localization of metabolite concentrations will then be computed. Further analysis, such as concentration GABA as a function of distance from MS lesions, may yield novel insights into the progression of multiple sclerosis. Furthermore, metabolite abnormalities will be evaluated on their potential as diagnostically relevant biomarkers.

Message To Sponsor

I would like to thank the Pergo Foundation for funding my research project. My summer research experience was beneficial to myself and others.
Major: Biochemistry
Mentor: Dr. Roland Henry
Sponsor: Pergo Fund
Back to Listings
Back to Donor Reports