Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.

Investigating pharmacological modulation of brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) presents an exciting opportunity to bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical studies, and holds the potential to be a useful tool in the discovery and development of novel therapeutic agents. Mos...

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Main Authors: Murphy, SE, Mackay, C
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2011
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author Murphy, SE
Mackay, C
author_facet Murphy, SE
Mackay, C
author_sort Murphy, SE
collection OXFORD
description Investigating pharmacological modulation of brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) presents an exciting opportunity to bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical studies, and holds the potential to be a useful tool in the discovery and development of novel therapeutic agents. Most functional MRI studies to date have utilized the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) contrast mechanism. Although this has some advantages over other techniques and is widely available, BOLD has two significant limitations for the study of drug effects; it is an indirect measurement of neuronal function, and produces only a relative (non-quantitative) measure of blood dynamics. Here we describe the various experimental manipulations that have been used to reduce the impact of these limitations, and discuss new ways of collecting and analysing imaging data that allow us to assess functional connectivity of the brain. We recommend some complementary techniques (such as arterial spin labelling and magnetoencephalography) that, if used in conjunction with BOLD functional MRI, will increase the interpretability and thus the utility of MRI for pharmacology research.
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spelling oxford-uuid:05ff6787-d58c-40d6-8c30-e9c1b8fd27822022-03-26T09:00:16ZUsing MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:05ff6787-d58c-40d6-8c30-e9c1b8fd2782EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2011Murphy, SEMackay, CInvestigating pharmacological modulation of brain activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) presents an exciting opportunity to bridge the gap between preclinical and clinical studies, and holds the potential to be a useful tool in the discovery and development of novel therapeutic agents. Most functional MRI studies to date have utilized the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) contrast mechanism. Although this has some advantages over other techniques and is widely available, BOLD has two significant limitations for the study of drug effects; it is an indirect measurement of neuronal function, and produces only a relative (non-quantitative) measure of blood dynamics. Here we describe the various experimental manipulations that have been used to reduce the impact of these limitations, and discuss new ways of collecting and analysing imaging data that allow us to assess functional connectivity of the brain. We recommend some complementary techniques (such as arterial spin labelling and magnetoencephalography) that, if used in conjunction with BOLD functional MRI, will increase the interpretability and thus the utility of MRI for pharmacology research.
spellingShingle Murphy, SE
Mackay, C
Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.
title Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.
title_full Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.
title_fullStr Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.
title_full_unstemmed Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.
title_short Using MRI to measure drug action: caveats and new directions.
title_sort using mri to measure drug action caveats and new directions
work_keys_str_mv AT murphyse usingmritomeasuredrugactioncaveatsandnewdirections
AT mackayc usingmritomeasuredrugactioncaveatsandnewdirections