Matthias van Osch is professor in Radiology, experimental cerebrovascular imaging and he is vice-director of the C.J. Gorter Center for high field MRI. in 2016 he was awarded with the innovational research incentives scheme VICI “Breaking through spatial, temporal and physiological boundaries in brain imaging”.

More information about Thijs van Osch

Cerebrovascular imaging

The human brain has limited storage capacity for oxygen and nutrients and is therefore critically dependent on a continuous influx of blood to deliver these. In most brain diseases, afflictions of the cerebral vessels and/or impaired cerebral blood flow are thought to be important contributors. To characterize disease stage, allow early detection, and especially to monitor treatment efficacy, it is important to be able to measure cerebral perfusion as well as to probe the microvascular health. By developing new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences Matthias van Osch wants to enable such imaging technologies.

Although individual cerebral capillaries are too small to be imaged at the moment with any in vivo medical modality, MRI allows to magnetically labeling of the water in blood and monitor its inflow into the tissue, thereby providing a map of cerebral perfusion in a quantitative fashion. Importantly, this is a completely safe and non-invasive approach. By expanding on this technological approach, Matthias van Osch wants to enable imaging of other cerebrovascular parameters, such as oxygenation and subtle blood-brain-barrier damage, as well as microvascular health in general (measurements done with a typical pixel-size of 3x3x3 mm). Subsequently, these techniques will be clinically validated and applied. Interactions between brain perfusion and systemic processes such as heart function, will be an important applied research topic.

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