About

Laura Eisenmenger, MD, is an Associate Professor of Radiology (tenure track) in the Neuroradiology Section at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She serves as the Associate Chief of MRI and the Medical Director of Imaging Services for the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research. Dr. Eisenmenger graduated summa cum laude from Illinois Wesleyan University and earned her MD at Ohio State University College of Medicine, graduating magna cum laude. She completed an internship at Riverside Methodist Hospital and a Diagnostic Radiology residency at the University of Utah. She also completed a Neuroradiology fellowship at the University of California-San Francisco, where she was a Chief Fellow. Her background includes leadership experience as President of the Utah Medical Association Resident Executive Committee during 2016-2017. Her research has been recognized through multiple grants, including those from the Radiological Society of North America. Her professional focus is in the field of Neuroradiology, with a history of academic and clinical contributions in medical imaging.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Cardiology
• Radiology
• Artificial Intelligence
• Nuclear medicine
• Psychology
• Pathology
• Computer Science
• Neuroscience
• Physics
• Psychiatry

Selected publications

• The Impact of Genetic Testing on Clinical Diagnosis, Treatment, and Surveillance in Patients with Vascular Anomalies

  Journal of Investigative Dermatology · 2026-03-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Expert consensus on intracranial vessel wall MRI in cerebrovascular disease: Society for Magnetic Resonance Angiography recommendations

  European Radiology · 2026-02-13 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Response to Letter to editor Regarding "Low incidence of acute actionable imaging findings in emergency department patients imaged for vertigo"

  Emergency Radiology · 2026-04-02

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Low incidence of acute actionable imaging findings in emergency department patients imaged for vertigo: Retrospective analysis and proposed guidelines

  Emergency Radiology · 2025-12-22 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  PURPOSE: To quantify the diagnostic yield of neuroimaging in adult emergency department (ED) patients presenting with vertigo, and to identify clinical predictors of acute central pathology that can inform imaging decisions. METHODS: This retrospective study reviewed all neuroimaging examinations performed for vertigo at 14 EDs within our health network between May 2016 and January 2025. Adult ED patients (n=4,135; mean age 62.5 years; 62% female) who underwent imaging (n=5,445 exams, approximately 89% CT and 11% MR) were included. Imaging exams with potentially clinically relevant findings were flagged for further review (n=291 exams and patients); these patients were separated into four separate groups based on their imaging findings: 1) acute actionable contributory to vertigo, 2) acute actionable non-contributory to vertigo, 3) non-acute actionable, or 4) non-actionable. Vertigo quality (constant, intermittent/resolved spontaneously, no vertigo), acuity, neurological examination (including cerebellar signs and the Head-Impulse, Nystagmus, and Test-of-Skew [HINTS] exam), and intervention rates were analyzed within these subgroups using Fisher's exact and chi-square tests. RESULTS: Of 5,445 exams, 291 (5.3%) were flagged with potentially relevant imaging findings. Of these exams, only 115 (2.1%) yielded actionable findings, and just 65 (1.2%) revealed acute central causes contributing to vertigo. In patients with positive imaging findings, constant vertigo was strongly associated with acute contributory pathology (98.5% in this group vs. 6.0% in other groups, p<0.0001). Acute onset was more frequent in acute contributory cases (63.1% vs. 40.8%, p=0.0006), as were abnormal HINTS or cerebellar signs (44.6% vs. 6.0%, p<0.0001). Most patients with acute contributory findings received specialty consultations resulting in intervention (95.4%). Intermittent or resolved vertigo was commonly seen in patients with benign peripheral diagnoses. CONCLUSION: Neuroimaging frequently yields normal results in ED vertigo cases; acute actionable central findings deemed contributory to vertigo are rare. Only approximately 2% of patients had acute actionable imaging findings and only 1.3% had a stroke. In patients with acute actionable imaging findings, clinical features-especially constant vertigo, acute onset, and abnormal neurological exam-are strongly associated with central causes and should guide selective imaging in the ED.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Onset ages of cerebrovascular disease and amyloid and effects on cognition in risk-enriched cohorts

  Brain Communications · 2025-01-01 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The temporal relationship between cerebrovascular disease (V), indicated by white matter hyperintensities, and beta-amyloid (A) in Alzheimer’s disease remains unclear, prompting speculation about their potential interdependence. Longitudinal data were employed to estimate onset ages and corresponding disease chronicity for A and V (where disease chronicity is calculated as age at measurement minus estimated age of biomarker abnormality onset). In a large, predominantly cognitively unimpaired dataset (n = 877, ages 43–93 years), a V+ threshold was identified, and Sampled Iterative Local Approximation (SILA) was utilized to illustrate the predictable accumulation trajectory of V post-onset. Investigating the temporal association between A and V onset ages and accumulation trajectories in preclinical years, four operationalizations of time were examined across two initially cognitively unimpaired samples (n = 240 primary sample from Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention; n = 123 replication sample from Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center): (i) chronological age, (ii) estimated V+ chronicity, (iii) years since baseline scan, and (iv) estimated A+ chronicity. Results indicated that while both diseases are age-related, their onsets and trajectories are independent of each other. In addition, results indicated that V and A accumulation trajectories were highly predictable relative to onset of positivity for each biomarker. Cognitive decline across multiple cognitive domains was fastest when both V and A were present based on last available amyloid PET and MRI scan, with greater A chronicity being a more salient predictor of cognitive decline in these samples.

  PublisherDOI

• Biological sex influences relationships between cerebral pulsatility and white matter hyperintensities in aging adults

  American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology · 2025-05-02 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  The vascular mechanisms underlying the elevated prevalence of Alzheimer's disease among females remain unclear. In this study, we found that positive relationships between cerebral pulsatility in the anterior circulation and white matter hyperintensities (WMH) emerged in females in middle age but not until older adulthood in males. In addition, female-specific relationships were present between cerebral pulsatility in the posterior circulation and WMH in older adults.

  PublisherDOI

• Quantifying physiological variability and improving reproducibility in <scp>4D</scp>‐flow <scp>MRI</scp> cerebrovascular measurements with self‐supervised deep learning

  Magnetic Resonance in Medicine · 2025-07-25 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  PURPOSE: To assess the efficacy of self-supervised deep learning (DL) denoising in reducing measurement variability in 4D-Flow MRI, and to clarify the contributions of physiological variation to cerebrovascular hemodynamics. METHODS: A self-supervised DL denoising framework was trained on 3D radially sampled 4D-Flow MRI data. The model was evaluated in a prospective test-retest imaging study in which 10 participants underwent multiple 4D-Flow MRI scans. This included back-to-back scans and a single scan interleaved acquisition designed to isolate noise from physiological variations. The effectiveness of DL denoising was assessed by comparing pixelwise velocity and hemodynamic metrics before and after denoising. RESULTS: DL denoising significantly enhanced the reproducibility of 4D-Flow MRI measurements, reducing the 95% confidence interval of cardiac-resolved velocity from 215 to 142 mm/s in back-to-back scans and from 158 to 96 mm/s in interleaved scans, after adjusting for physiological variation. In derived parameters, DL denoising did not significantly improve integrated measures, such as flow rates, but did significantly improve noise sensitive measures, such as pulsatility index. Physiologic variation in back-to-back time-resolved scans contributed 26.37% ± 0.08% and 32.42% ± 0.05% of standard error before and after DL. CONCLUSION: Self-supervised DL denoising enhances the quantitative repeatability of 4D-Flow MRI by reducing technical noise; however, variations from physiology and post-processing are not removed. These findings underscore the importance of accounting for both technical and physiological variability in neurovascular flow imaging, particularly for studies aiming to establish biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases with vascular contributions.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Simultaneous and synchronous characterization of blood and CSF flow dynamics using multiple Venc PC MRI

  Imaging Neuroscience · 2025-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Neurofluid dynamics are crucial for maintaining brain homeostasis and facilitating the clearance of brain metabolites through the coupling of arterial and venous blood with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Two-dimensional phase contrast (PC) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is frequently used to study neurofluids; however, separate examinations are typically required for assessing blood and CSF flow, which can confound analyses due to asynchronous physiological measurements. To enable simultaneous assessment of neurofluid dynamics, we describe and evaluate a 2D PC MRI approach in human participant experiments. An interleaved multi-point velocity encoding scheme was integrated into a 2D golden angle spiral PC MRI scan to facilitate synchronous characterization of neurofluids. Two multi-point schemes, including interleaved dual-venc (DV) and triple-venc (MV) scans, were evaluated and compared with standard asynchronous single-venc (SV) scans. Data and repeated scans were collected on a clinical 3.0T scanner at the level of the C1/C2 vertebrae in 10 human participants. From cardiac-resolved images, the relationship between net blood flow and CSF flow pulsatile volume change was characterized using regression modeling. Temporal lags between cardiac-driven arterial blood (vertebral arteries (VAs) and internal carotid arteries (ICAs)) and spinal canal (SC) CSF were estimated with cross-correlation. SV, DV, and MV flow mean, range, and volume changes were studied and compared using linear mixed effect models, intraclass correlation coefficients, Bland–Altman, and Pearson correlations. A strong relationship was measured between net blood flow and CSF flow pulsatile volume change from SV (R2 = 0.71, P = 0.002), DV (R2 = 0.70, P = 0.003), and MV (R2 = 0.78, P &amp;lt; 0.001) scans. SC-VAs temporal lags were statistically longer than SC-ICAs lags across all scans (P &amp;lt; 0.001 for SV, DV, and MV). Bland–Altman analyses and repeatability coefficients indicated that DV and MV scans had the highest repeatability. MV scans generally underestimated SC CSF flow markers relative to SV and DV scans. A more pronounced flow offset in venous measures was identified between SV scans and the DV and MV scans. In conclusion, this study introduced a method for simultaneous imaging of cranio-spinal arterial, venous, and CSF flow, enabling the synchronous assessment of neurofluid dynamics. The results indicated that interleaved DV and MV scans could improve the evaluation of neurofluid coupling compared with asynchronous SV scans.

  PublisherDOI

• Quantitative MRI comparison of early and late parenchymal injury after transcallosal vs. endoscopic approaches for third ventricle colloid cysts

  Frontiers in Surgery · 2025-11-27

  articleOpen access

  Background The interhemispheric transcallosal (ITA) and endoscopic approaches (EA) are established treatments for third ventricle colloid cysts (TVCCs); however, their relative parenchymal impact and the progression of associated MRI changes from early to late postoperative stages remain undefined. Objective To compare early volumetric MRI findings after ITA and EA for TVCC resection and determine whether early parenchymal injury persisted on late imaging. Methods Twenty-three patients (ITA, 13; EA, 10) with early and late postoperative MRI were retrospectively reviewed. Early T2/FLAIR hyperintensity volumes were segmented along the surgical tract (burr-hole tract subtracted in EA). DWI/ADC imaging assessed diffusion restriction. Late MRI evaluated gliosis, encephalomalacia, and parenchymal loss. Statistical, correlation, and sensitivity analyses assessed associations while adjusting for cyst size and hydrocephalus. Results Early MRI hyperintensity volume was smaller after ITA than EA (349 ± 218 mm 3 vs. 2,952 ± 2,084 mm 3 ; p &amp;lt; 0.001). Diffusion restriction occurred in 7.7% of ITA and 50% of EA ( p = 0.052). Gliosis, encephalomalacia, and parenchymal loss on late MRI were absent after ITA but present in 50% of EA cases ( p = 0.007 each), with larger early volumes in EA associated with gliosis ( p = 0.032), encephalomalacia, and parenchymal loss ( p = 0.016 each). These associations persisted after adjusting for cyst size and hydrocephalus. Gross total resection occurred in 92% of ITA and 50% of EA cases ( p = 0.039). Conclusions Compared with ITA, EA produced larger early parenchymal injury, half of which persisted as structural abnormalities on late imaging, indicating more persistent radiologic change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Quantifying the Impact of FAST MRIs and a Dedicated Emergency Department MRI System on Patient Wait Times

  Proceedings on CD-ROM - International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. Scientific Meeting and Exhibition/Proceedings of the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Scientific Meeting and Exhibition · 2025-09-16

  articleSenior author

  Motivation: Determine the impact of a dedicated emergency department MRI system and FAST MRI protocols on workflow. Goal(s): Quantify the time between MRI order and initial image acquisition (order-to-image time) to determine the reduction in patient wait time using FAST MRI protocols during dedicated ED MRI hours (Weekdays 3-11pm). Approach: Order and first image time were extracted from the health record and DICOM headers to determine order-to-image time. Results: Patients that received a FAST exam during the dedicated ED hours were imaged significantly faster. Additionally, all patients that received an MRI during ED hours were imaged significantly quicker than before regardless of protocol type. Impact: Implementation of dedicated MRI hours and FAST protocols for patients from the emergency department decreased the time between MRI order and imaging, facilitating improved patient care.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Non-Invasive MRI Markers to Elicit the Role of Vascular Disease in CADASIL Compared to Normal Aging

  NIH · $2.2M · 2024–2029

Frequent coauthors

• Sterling C. Johnson

  Temple University

  55 shared

• Kevin M. Johnson

  39 shared

• Leonardo A. Rivera‐Rivera

  35 shared

• Howard A. Rowley

  25 shared

• Cynthia M. Carlsson

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  22 shared

• Karly Alex Cody

  Stanford University

  18 shared

• Tobey J. Betthauser

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  16 shared

• Jesse Manunga

  Abbott Northwestern Hospital

  16 shared

Education

• B.A.

  Illinois Wesleyan University

• M.D.

  Ohio State University College of Medicine

Awards & honors

• Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) Resident Resear…
• Roentgen Resident Research Award (2017)
• RSNA Fellow Research Grant (2018)