Ex vivo brain MRI to assess conventional and FLASH brain irradiation effects.

ABSTRACT:

Background and purpose

The FLASH effect expands the therapeutic ratio of tumor control to normal tissue toxicity observed after delivery of ultra-high (>100 Gy/s FLASH-RT) vs. conventional dose rate radiation (CONV-RT). In this first exploratory study, we assessed whether ex vivo Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) could reveal long-term differences after FLASH-RT and CONV-RT whole-brain irradiation.

Materials and methods

Female C57BL/6 mice were divided into three groups: control (non-irradiated), conventional (CONV-RT 0.1 Gy/s), and ultra-high dose rates (FLASH-RT 1 pulse, 5.5 x 10^6 Gy/s), and received 10 Gy of whole-brain irradiation in a single fraction at 10 weeks of age. Mice were evaluated by Novel Object Recognition cognitive testing at 10 months post-irradiation and w

SUBMITTER: Jansen J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12919612 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature