In this AJNR Podcast Author Interview, Dr. Francis Deng and Dr. Amy Juliano discuss how CT can subtype Menière disease by assessing the vestibular aqueduct and adjacent bone. During normal childhood, the angular trajectory of the vestibular aqueduct progressively narrows; an angle greater than 120 degrees after age 12 indicates adult-persistent hypoplasia and thus the hypoplastic endolymphatic sac endotype rather than normal maturation. A retrolabyrinthine bone thickness of at least 1.2 mm serves as a practical surrogate for a mature vestibular aqueduct orientation, reliably excluding the hypoplastic endotype and identifying ears that do not belong to this high-risk subgroup. In contrast, in the degenerative endotype of Menière disease, retrolabyrinthine bone thickness is more variable and does not follow this simple threshold pattern, so CT features must be interpreted in a broader clinical and imaging context.

Read the AJNR articles mentioned in this episode:

"Postnatal Development of the Vestibular Aqueduct Trajectory on CT: Establishing Age-Specific Norms to Distinguish Normal from Arrested (Hypoplastic) Development"

"Retrolabyrinthine Bone Thickness as a Radiologic Marker for the Hypoplastic Endotype in Menière Disease".

In this AJNR Article Summary, Dr. George Vilanilam discusses the article, "Biphasic Progression of Radiation-Induced Carotid Stenosis: The Predictive Role of Low-Density Plaque". Low‑density carotid plaque on imaging may signal accelerated stenosis progression in post‑radiation patients, highlighting the need for earlier intervention and a shift toward evaluating plaque composition, not just degree of narrowing, to help prevent stroke in this high‑risk group.

In this AJNR Fellows' Journal Club article summary, Dr. Francis Deng and Dr. Amir Khadivi discuss the article by Proner et al., "Impact of Clinical and Radiologic Factors on CTP Timing in Acute Ischemic Stroke." They discuss the authors' findings that cardiac arrhythmias and older age are independent predictors of nondiagnostic CTP exams. Specifically, these factors often lead to the truncation of reference vessel time-attenuation curves that fail to reach equilibrium within a 45-second acquisition window.