To improve the MRI's ability to spot the most inflamed plaque, Fayad (like many others) is trying to develop nanoparticles that would be injected into patients and would lodge in fat-laden cells in the artery walls.

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This is like arguing that plaque inside the arteries of heart patients is protective because it holds the vessel wall together, Schenk says.

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Tearing through stubble and plaque, it's almost like driving, but on your face.

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For other heart medicines that don't affect cholesterol levels, like a drug being developed by Japan's Sankyo to keep plaque from sticking to the artery wall, IVUS may be the only way to evaluate effectiveness.

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Likening plaque deposits to "tombstones, " she says the field historically has been too focused on autopsy findings like plaques rather than on whatever is killing brain cells while people are still alive.

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