Daniel Vigneron

Research Interests

Development of high resolution Magnetic Resonance techniques for anatomic, metabolic and functional imaging.

Research Summary

My research focuses on the development of metabolic Magnetic Resonance imaging (MRI) techniques for both basic research and clinical assessments of human diseases. Current clinical MRI exams provide anatomic information but the accurate characterization of many diseases requires metabolic and functional assessments. To address this need, my research focuses on the development of new hardware/software and MR protocols to provide biochemical information in addition to the anatomic information provided by clinical MRI. The MR acquisition techniques that our group has developed have now been used clinically in thousands of brain tumor and prostate cancer studies at UCSF and will soon be disseminated widely by GE Medical Systems as a commercial product. My current focus is to develop new methods to improve metabolic and functional MR for current applications and to establish new pediatric applications of these techniques.
Pediatric MRI is very important but underdeveloped imaging application. Improved imaging techniques are critical to the understanding and management of pediatric brain diseases but have historically not been the focus of new MR developments. At UCSF, we have established a large multi-disciplinary project (Radiology, Neurology, Pediatrics, Bioengineering, Anesthesia, Nursing) to develop new MR hardware and techniques to elucidate both normal development and disease processes in pediatric patients. The developments include new MR detector designs and a novel MR compatible incubator to study newborns. We have created new acquisition techniques specialized for neonatal MR studies of normal and abnormal brain metabolism. These include diffusion tensor imaging to monitor the development of white matter tracts and MR spectroscopic techniques to detect cellular metabolite levels noninvasively. Our preliminary data indicate that this modality can provide unique metabolic assessments of neonatal brain development and injury that cannot be adequately obtained with conventional measures. We are also developing new high resolution MRI techniques using specialized phased-array coils to detect and characterize brain lesions in pediatric epilepsy patients. We plan to extend this important work to higher field MR systems on a 3T MR system soon and ultimately the 7T whole body system planned to be installed at UCSF.

Selected Publications

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Vigneron DB, Barkovich AJ, Noworolski SM, von dem Bussche M, Henry RG, Lu Y, Partridge JC, Gregory GA, and Ferriero DM. Three-Dimensional Proton MR Spectroscopic Imaging of Premature and Term Neonates. American Journal of Neuroradiology. 2001, 22: 1424-1433.

Vigneron DB, Bollen A, McDermott M, Wald LL, May MR, Noworolski SM, Henry R, Chang S, Prados M, Dillon WP, Nelson SJ. Three Dimensional Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging of Histologically-Confirmed Brain Tumors". Magnetic Resonance Imaging 2001, 19:89-101.

Vigneron DB and Nelson SJ. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Neuro-Oncology: The Essentials, ed. Berger M and Bernstein W. Thieme Medical Publishing, NY. 2000 p99-113.

Grant PE, Vigneron DB, Barkovich AJ. High Resolution Imaging of the Brain. Magnetic Resonance Imaging Clinics of North America, 1998, 6:139-154.

Vigneron DB, Kurhanewicz J, Nelson SJ. "Proton Chemical Shift Imaging in Cancer" in Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Body, (Editors Higgins, Hricak and Helms), Raven Press, New York, New York 1997 p205-220.