About this Research Topic
Rare diseases exist in more than 6800 different types affecting less than 5 in 10,000 people. The diagnosis of these diseases in the patients is delayed sometimes which can lead to a deterioration of the patients' condition affecting their quality of life and even life expectancy. In addition, no treatments exist for a vast majority of the diseases. The use of different neuroimaging modalities in radiology has shown some success in the earlier diagnosis of rare diseases. As new therapeutics are being developed to treat diseases, neuroimaging can become a powerful tool in tracking rare disease progression and evaluating treatment effects.
In this Research Topic, we would like to showcase the advances being made in the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases using neuroimaging. With the advancement of treatment mechanisms like gene therapy in rare diseases in the last few years, neuroimaging has played an invaluable tool in tracking imaging biomarkers in vivo, especially in looking at neurological disorders. We would like to highlight the areas of research that use neuroimaging to diagnose and track imaging biomarkers in response to therapeutic effects to better assess the condition of the patient.
We would like to focus on the utility of any type of neuroimaging being used such as MRI on rare diseases related to neurological disorders to assess imaging biomarkers with respect to disease diagnosis and treatment. Treatment mechanisms such as gene therapy and others used to treat rare diseases will be highly considered to assess the treatment effects on the imaging biomarkers in the brain.
In this Research Topic, we would like to showcase the advances being made in the diagnosis and treatment of rare diseases using neuroimaging. With the advancement of treatment mechanisms like gene therapy in rare diseases in the last few years, neuroimaging has played an invaluable tool in tracking imaging biomarkers in vivo, especially in looking at neurological disorders. We would like to highlight the areas of research that use neuroimaging to diagnose and track imaging biomarkers in response to therapeutic effects to better assess the condition of the patient.
We would like to focus on the utility of any type of neuroimaging being used such as MRI on rare diseases related to neurological disorders to assess imaging biomarkers with respect to disease diagnosis and treatment. Treatment mechanisms such as gene therapy and others used to treat rare diseases will be highly considered to assess the treatment effects on the imaging biomarkers in the brain.
Keywords: rare disease, neuroimaging, diagnosis, treatment, MRI
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