Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre View Institution's Website 6 articles published in JoVE Medicine MRI-guided Focused Ultrasound Thalamotomy for Patients with Medically-refractory Essential Tremor Ying Meng1, Yuexi Huang2, Benjamin Solomon2, Kullervo Hynynen2, Nadia Scantlebury1, Michael L. Schwartz1, Nir Lipsman1 1Division of Neurosurgery, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2Sunnybrook Research Institute, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre High-intensity MRI guided focused ultrasound is an emerging noninvasive technique to precisely ablate brain tissue. It has been shown to be safe and effective in treating medically-refractory essential tremor. This article describes the protocol for thalamotomy from patient selection to equipment setup to post-treatment follow-up. Medicine Lesion Explorer: A Video-guided, Standardized Protocol for Accurate and Reliable MRI-derived Volumetrics in Alzheimer's Disease and Normal Elderly Joel Ramirez1, Christopher J.M. Scott1, Alicia A. McNeely1, Courtney Berezuk1, Fuqiang Gao1, Gregory M. Szilagyi1,2, Sandra E. Black1,2 1LC Campbell Cognitive Neurology Research Unit, Heart & Stroke Foundation Canadian Partnership for Stroke Recovery, Brain Sciences Research Program, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 2Department of Medicine (Neurology), Institute of Medical Science, University of Toronto Lesion Explorer (LE) is a semi-automatic, image-processing pipeline developed to obtain regional brain tissue and subcortical hyperintensity lesion volumetrics from structural MRI of Alzheimer's disease and normal elderly. To ensure a high level of accuracy and reliability, the following is a video-guided, standardized protocol for LE's manual procedures. Medicine MicroRNA Detection in Prostate Tumors by Quantitative Real-time PCR (qPCR) Aida Gordanpour1, Robert K. Nam2, Linda Sugar3, Stephanie Bacopulos1, Arun Seth1,3,4 1Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology, University of Toronto, 2Division of Urology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Canada, 3Department of Anatomic Pathology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Canada, 4Biological Sciences, Sunnybrook Research Institute Quantitative Real Time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) is a rapid and sensitive method to investigate the expression levels of various microRNA (miRNA) molecules in tumor samples. Using this method expression of hundreds of different miRNA molecules can be amplified, quantified, and analyzed from the same cDNA template. Medicine MRI-guided Disruption of the Blood-brain Barrier using Transcranial Focused Ultrasound in a Rat Model Meaghan A. O'Reilly1, Adam C. Waspe1,2, Rajiv Chopra1,2, Kullervo Hynynen1,3 1Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Research Institute, 2Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, 3Department of Medical Biophysics, and Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), University of Toronto Microbubble-mediated focused ultrasound disruption of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a promising technique for non-invasive targeted drug delivery in the brain1-3. This protocol outlines the experimental procedure for MRI-guided transcranial BBB disruption in a rat model. Medicine A Protocol for Comprehensive Assessment of Bulbar Dysfunction in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Yana Yunusova1,2, Jordan R. Green3, Jun Wang3, Gary Pattee4, Lorne Zinman2,5 1Department of Speech-Language Pathology, University of Toronto, 2ALS/ MN Clinic, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, 3Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 4Department of Neurology, Munroe-Meyer Institute, University of Nebraska Medical Center, 5Department of Neurology, University of Toronto Objective assessments of the physiological mechanisms that support speech are needed to monitor disease onset and progression in persons with ALS and to quantify treatment effects in clinical trials. In this video, we present a comprehensive, instrumentation-based protocol for quantifying speech motor performance in clinical populations. Medicine An Investigation of the Effects of Sports-related Concussion in Youth Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the Head Impact Telemetry System Michelle Keightley1,2,3,4,5, Stephanie Green1, Nick Reed1, Sabrina Agnihotri1, Amy Wilkinson3, Nancy Lobaugh6,7 1Graduate Department of Rehabilitation Science, University of Toronto, 2Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy, University of Toronto, 3Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 4Bloorview Kids Rehab, 5Toronto Rehab, 6Cognitive Neurology, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, 7Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto This article provides an overview of a multi-modal approach to mild traumatic brain injury diagnosis and recovery in youth. This approach combines neuropsychological testing with functional magnetic resonance imaging and the Head Impact Telemetry System to monitor the relationship between head impacts and brain activity during cognitive testing.