Alexandra Talia Vertinsky

University of British Columbia | UBC · Department of Radiology

Pain and related consequences could contribute to comorbid illness and premature mortality in homeless and precariously housed persons. We analyzed longitudinal data from an ongoing naturalistic prospective study of a community-based sample (n = 370) to characterize risk factors and consequences of bodily pain. The aims were to describe bodily pain...

Background and purpose: We aim to describe the burden, characteristics, and cognitive associations of cerebral small vessel disease in a Canadian sample living with multimorbidity in precarious housing. Methods: Participants received T1, T2-fluid-attenuated inversion recovery, and susceptibility-weighted imaging 3T magnetic resonance imaging seque...

Background The “trimorbidity” of substance use disorder and mental and physical illness is associated with living in precarious housing or homelessness. The extent to which substance use increases risk of psychosis and both contribute to mortality needs investigation in longitudinal studies. Methods and findings A community-based sample of 437 adu...

Background Homeless and vulnerably housed individuals are at increased risk for multimorbidity compared with the general population. We assessed prevalence of brain infarcts on neuroimaging and associations with vascular risk factors and cognitive performance in a prospective study of residents living in marginal housing. Methods and Results Two h...

Introduction Cognition is impaired in homeless and vulnerably housed persons. Within this heterogeneous and multimorbid group, distinct profiles of cognitive dysfunction are evident. However, little is known about the underlying neurobiological substrates. Imaging structural covariance networks provides a novel investigative strategy to characteriz...

Background: Schizophrenia is associated with poor cognitive function and elevated cardiometabolic disease risk. These health concerns may exacerbate neurocognitive dysfunction associated with hippocampal abnormalities, particularly hippocampal volume reductions. Regular exercise is thought to improve symptom severity, reduce depression, and improv...

Methods: Detailed mental and physical health structured interviews, neuropsychological testing, and multimodal MRI were performed on 283 participants. Two traumatic brain injury (TBI) participant groups were defined for primary analyses: those with a self-reported history of TBI and those with MRI evidence of TBI. Results: By self-report, 174 pa...

Background: Smaller orbitofrontal and superior frontal cortical volumes have been associated with impaired executive function in patients with schizophrenia. In contrast, exercise interventions have been shown to reduce symptom severity and are thought to increase production of neurotrophic factors, induce neurogenesis, and alter gene expression to...

Background: The neurotoxic and/or neuroprotective effects of individual antipsychotics remain controversial, with equivocal reports emerging from the animal and human literature, particularly in cognitively critical fronto-temporal areas. We investigated the relationship between antipsychotic dose and frontal white matter fractional anisotropy (FA)...

Objective: The Hotel Study was initiated in Vancouver's Downtown East Side (DTES) neighborhood to investigate multimorbidity in homeless or marginally housed people. We evaluated the clinical effectiveness of existing, illness-specific treatment strategies and assessed the effectiveness of health care delivery for multimorbid illnesses. Method:...

Background: White Matter Hyperintensities (WMH) are features of cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD) along with lacunes, cerebral microbleeds and perivascular spaces. Vascular risk factors account for only a small proportion of the variability of the presence of WMH, and the role of additional risk factors including drug use/dependence or infection...

The authors examined associations between complementary fronto-temporal structural brain measures (gyrification, cortical thickness) and neurocognitive profiles in a multimorbid, socially marginalized sample. Participants were recruited from single-room occupancy hotels and a downtown community courthouse ( = 299) and grouped on multiple neurocogni...

After prolonged psychostimulant abuse, transient psychotic symptoms referred to as “substance-induced psychosis” (SIP) can develop – closely resembling symptoms observed in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The comparability in psychotic presentation between SIP and schizophrenias suggests that similar underlying neural deficits may contribute to t...

Background context Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a very useful diagnostic test for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) because it can identify degenerative changes within the spinal cord (SC), disclose the extent, localization, and the kind of SC compression, and help rule out other SC disorders. However, the relationships between changes i...

Objective: The health of people living in marginal housing is not well characterized, particularly from the perspective of multimorbid illness. The authors investigated this population in a community sample. Method: A prospective community sample (N=293) of adults living in single-room occupancy hotels was followed for a median of 23.7 months. A...

The calcification of cervical carotid artery atheroma (CCAA) represents maturation of a lumenal atherosclerotic plaque that has been associated with a high risk of cerebral stroke. The demonstration of CCAA on rotational panoramic images has received increasing attention in dentistry since it was first described in 1981. The purposes of this articl...

Fibers connecting fronto-temporal and fronto-medial structures that pass through the anterior limb of the internal capsule (ALIC) subserve executive and psychomotor functioning. Both of these functions are adversely affected in schizophrenia, and may be abnormal at illness onset. In a study of first-episode psychosis, we used diffusion tensor imagi...

Objective: The purpose of this article is to describe the imaging appearances of musculoskeletal injuries related to yoga. We performed an automated search in the database of a large tertiary care center and conducted a retrospective analysis of the imaging findings in 38 patients over a 9-year period. Conclusion: The most frequently encountered...

The purpose of our study was to compare axial multiple-echo recombined gradient echo (MERGE) with axial T2-weighted fast spin-echo (FSE) imaging for the detection of multiple sclerosis (MS) lesions in the cervical spinal cord on MRI. Twenty-nine cervical spine MRI studies of patients with MS lesions and 29 control cases were reviewed retrospectivel...

Adult scoliosis rates range from 2 to 32%. Surgery for scoliosis is common. Accurate and surgically relevant information should be provided to the referring surgeon from pre- and postoperative imaging. There are various methods to correct scoliosis surgically with the end points correction of the curve and relief of symptoms. This is achieved throu...

The frequency and variety of spinal instrumentation has increased tremendously over the past 100 years, and imaging plays an important role in evaluating the postoperative spine. Although assessment of spinal hardware often involves a multimodality approach, plain radiographs are the most commonly used modality, given accessibility, cost, relativel...

Objective: The educational objectives for this self-assessment module are for the participant to exercise, self-assess, and improve his or her understanding of evaluation of scoliosis using radiography. Conclusion: The solutions to the questions in this activity review the imaging characteristics of radiologic evaluation of scoliosis.

Despite enormous advances in cross-sectional imaging over the past few decades, radiography remains the main-stay of diagnosis and evaluation of scoliosis. Knowledge of technical factors, measurement error, and measurement techniques is important in the comparison of serial radiographs and affects surgical decision making. This article focuses on a...

T2-weighted fast spin-echo imaging (T2-W FSE) is frequently degraded by motion in pediatric patients. MR imaging with periodically rotated overlapping parallel lines with enhanced reconstruction (PROPELLER) employs alternate sampling of k-space to achieve motion reduction. To compare T2-W PROPELLER FSE (T2-W PROP) with conventional T2-W FSE for: (1...

On clinical MR images, the subthalamic nuclei (STN) are poorly delineated from adjacent structures, impeding safe direct targeting for placement of electrodes in the treatment of Parkinson disease. Susceptibility-weighted MR phase imaging offers improved contrast and spatial resolution at reduced imaging times relative to clinically used T2-weighte...

Conventional angiography has been historically considered the gold standard for the diagnosis of cervical artery dissection, but MR imaging/MR angiography (MRA) and CT/CT angiography (CTA) are commonly used noninvasive alternatives. The goal of this study was to compare the ability of multidetector CT/CTA and MR imaging/MRA to detect common imaging...

Damage to the spinal cord may be caused by a wide range of pathologies and generally results in profound functional disability. A reliable diagnostic workup of the spine is very important because even relatively small lesions in this part of the central nervous system can have a profound clinical impact. MR imaging has become the method of choice f...