Mehnert
Fakultäten » Medizinische Fakultät » Universitätsklinik Balgrist und Schweizerisches Paraplegikerzentrum » Paraplegikerzentrum » Prof. Dr. Volker Dietz (emeritiert) » Mehnert
Completed research project
| Title / Titel | Cortical representation of bladder sensations: Does bladder cooling involve the same supraspinal network as bladder distention – an fMRI study | ||||
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| Abstract (PDF, 14 KB) | |||||
| Summary / Zusammenfassung | Introduction: In the last years a defined network of brain regions involved in voiding control and filling sensations could be established, including the Pons, periaqueductal gray region, anterior cingulate gyrus, Insula, Thalamus, prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. Still little is known about the regions involved in cold perception of the bladder. As distention and cooling are different sensations and supposed to be transmitted via different fiber types, it was the aim of this study to investigate the cortical response pattern to bladder cooling in an fMRI block design study. Material & methods: After approval of the local ethics committee, 12 healthy female subjects (mean age 24.8 ±3.4 years) gave their written informed consent and were included. The study was performed using a 3 Tesla Scanner (Philips Achieva) and a voxel size of 3 mm3. Subjects were catheterized using a 14 Fr Foley catheter. The fMRI protocol was adapted to the mean time of bladder cooling sensation, which was determined in a test run prior to scanning. The scanning consisted of 10 repetitive cycles and each cycle consisted of 5 conditions: rest, filling, sensation, drain1, and drain2. Cold saline was passively infused at 4-8°C during scanning. Filling was stopped at the end of the sensation condition. Not more than 100 ml of saline were infused. Analysis was performed with BrainVoyager 1.8 using spatial smoothing of 4 mm, a high pass linear trend removal, temporal filtering (3 cycles in time course), and a cluster size of 25. All activations were evaluated on random effects level. |
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| Keywords / Suchbegriffe | fMRI, lower urinary tract, bladder cooling reflex, cortical representation | ||||
| Project leadership and contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte |
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| Funding source(s) / Unterstützt durch |
SNF (Programm NFS/NCCR) |
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| Duration of Project / Projektdauer | Apr 2007 to Apr 2008 |