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Background: Cannabis is one of the most commonly used substances in the United States. Prior literature using task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has identified that individuals with Cannabis use disorder (CUD) show impairments in emotion processing circuitry. However, whether the functional networks involving these regions are also altered in CUD remains poorly understood. Aims: Investigate changes in resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in regions related to emotional processing in CUD. Methods: Sixty-two participants completed resting-state fMRI, including 21 with CUD, 20 with histories of illicit substance use but no current CUD diagnosis, and 21 with no history of illicit substance use. Whole-brain seed-based connectivity analyses were performed and one-way analyses of covariance (ANCOVAs) were conducted to detect group differences in the bilateral amygdalae, hippocampi, and the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices. Results: The CUD group exhibited significant reductions in rsFC between the amygdala and the cuneus, paracentral lobule, and supplementary motor area, and between the cingulate cortices and the occipital and temporal lobes. There were no significant group differences in hippocampal functional connectivity. In addition, CUD symptom counts based on the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID) and the Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test (CUDIT) significantly correlated with multiple connectivity metrics. Conclusion: These data expand on emerging literature indicating that CUD is associated with dysfunction in the neural circuits underlying emotion processing. Dysfunction in emotion processing circuits may play a role in the behavioral impairments seen in emotion processing tasks in individuals with CUD, and the severity of CUD symptoms appears to be directly related to the degree of dysfunction in these circuits.

Background: The human paracentral lobule (PCL) is the medial continuation of the precentral and postcentral gyri. It has important functional area related to the lower limb and perineum. Its visible surface that corresponds to magnetic resonance imaging scout images varies in morphology, so it requires exact data. Studies related to such data are rare. With such a facile, we studied the morphology and morphometry of PCL. Materials and Methods: Fifty formalin-fixed adult human brains dissected in the midsagittal plane were used in this study. First, the morphological types of PCL and its boundary were determined, followed by morphometry of its extrasulcal surface using digital vernier calipers. Measurements were done along the anteroposterior axis (length) and vertical axis (height). In addition to that, the extent of motor and sensory area into PCL was also measured. Results: Three distinct morphological types of PCL were found: continuous (2%), partially segmented (91%), and completely segmented type (7%). In completely segmented type, a short transitional lobulolimbic gyrus was also found in three cases. The mean extrasulcal surface of the left PCL was significantly larger, both in males (left 10.67 cm2 vs. right 8.80 cm2) and in females (left 8.80 cm2 vs. right 6.99 cm2). Irrespective of gender and sidedness, motor area was significantly larger than the sensory area. Conclusion: Reported data will be useful in diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the human PCL. Variations in the distribution of sensorimotor cortex over PCL may help further assessment of hemispheric lateralization and the location of central sulcus as a reliable indicator of cytoarchitectonic borders.

BACKGROUND Adolescence is a critical period for neural development and has been associated with high rates of alcohol abuse. This research examined potential long-term brain and behavioral effects of early versus late-onset adolescent binge drinking in an adult sample of post-9/11 Veterans. METHODS We compared cortical thickness measures in Veterans with a history of binge drinking that began before the age of 15 (n = 50; mean age = 32.1 years) to those with a history of binge drinking with onset after the age of 15 (n = 300; mean age = 32.1 years). Data processing was conducted with FreeSurfer. A targeted neuropsychological battery (Digit Span test, Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System Color-Word Interference Test, California Verbal Learning Test-II) was used to examine the relationships between cortical thickness and attention, memory, and inhibition. A reference group of social drinkers with no history of early binge drinking (n = 31) was used to provide normative data. RESULTS Early-onset adolescent binge drinkers (EBD) had greater cortical thickness in several regions than late-onset adolescent binge drinkers (LBD); both binge-drinking groups had greater cortical thickness than the reference group. There was a stronger negative association between cortical thickness and age in EBDs than LBDs in the (i) lateral orbitofrontal cortex, (ii) supramarginal gyrus, (iii) paracentral lobule, and (iv) anterior caudal cingulate. Poorer performance on the attention and inhibition tasks in the EBDs was also associated with thicker cortices. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrates greater cortical thickness across frontoparietal regions in adults who began binge drinking in early versus late adolescence. A stronger negative association between cortical thickness and age in the EBDs suggests that early-onset adolescent binge drinking may be associated with accelerated cortical thinning. Thicker cortex in these regions, which are known to mediate inhibitory control, may increase impulsive behavior and contribute to the risk of alcohol addiction.

Background It has been proposed that individuals with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) show dysfunctional computations related to approach-avoidance decision-making. However, few studies have examined the neural basis of this impairment, particularly in adolescents with GAD. The goal of the current study was to address this gap in the literature. Method The study involved 51 adolescents with GAD and 51 typically developing (TD) comparison individuals matched on age (16.10 and 15.75 respective means), gender (30 F/21 M and 24 F/27 M), and IQ (103.20 and 103.18 respective means). Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during a passive avoidance task. Results We found a significant Group-by-Reinforcement interaction within reward-related brain regions including the caudate, putamen, mid cingulate/paracentral lobule, and superior and middle frontal gyrus. TD adolescents showed a greater differential response to reward versus punishment feedback within these regions relative to adolescents with GAD. In particular, this reflected reduced responses to rewards in the adolescents with GAD. There were no group differences in neural responses when making approach/avoidance responses. Conclusion The results of this study suggest reduced differential responsiveness to reinforcement as a component of the pathophysiology seen in adolescents with GAD. This dysfunction likely underpins decision-making impairments that may exacerbate the participants' worry.

The cingulate gyrus is part of the limbic system with extensive connectivity to different anatomical and functional areas. The traditional transcortical approach for a cingulate gyrus glioma contains high risk of transient or even irreversible postoperative hemiplegia. We present a case of gravity-assisted, fully endoscopic resection of a cingulate gyrus glioma with improvement of motor dysfunction while preserving the paracentral lobule, corticospinal tracts, and supplementary motor area. This case demonstrates the value of gravity-assisted endoscopic resection in the dominant cingulate gyrus tumor which is surrounded by eloquent parenchyma.

Multiple reports for brain functional and structural alterations in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) were published. The current study aimed to meta-analyze the existing neuroimaging data and hence produce a brain map revealing areas with functional and structural differences between patients with CD and healthy controls. Original studies published until 2019 were identified from Scopus, Web of Science and PubMed databases, and included into the analysis if they reported relevant results from task-related or resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI or rsfMRI) or voxel-based morphometry (VBM), in the form of standardized brain coordinates based on whole-brain analysis. The brain coordinates and sample size of significant results were extracted from eligible studies to be meta-analyzed with the activation likelihood estimation method using the GingerALE software. Sixteen original studies comprised of a total of 865 participants fulfilled the inclusion criteria. Compared to healthy controls, patients with CD had reduced resting state brain connectivity in the paracentral lobule and cingulate gyrus as well as reduced grey matter volume in the medial frontal gyrus. No significant results were found vice versa. These neural correlates allow a better understanding on the effects of CD on the pain expectation, emotion, and quality of life of patients and potentially serve as useful biomarkers for evaluating treatment efficacy.

In addition to the well-established somatotopy in the pre- and post-central gyrus, there is now strong evidence that somatotopic organization is evident across other regions in the sensorimotor network. This raises several experimental questions: To what extent is activity in the sensorimotor network effector-dependent and effector-independent? How important is the sensorimotor cortex when predicting the motor effector? Is there redundancy in the distributed somatotopically organized network such that removing one region has little impact on classification accuracy? To answer these questions, we developed a novel experimental approach. fMRI data were collected while human subjects performed a precisely controlled force generation task separately with their hand, foot, and mouth. We used a simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC) algorithm to segment whole-brain beta coefficient maps to build an adaptive brain parcellation and then classified effectors using extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) based on parcellations at various spatial resolutions. This allowed us to understand how data-driven adaptive brain parcellation granularity altered classification accuracy. Results revealed effector-dependent activity in regions of the post-central gyrus, precentral gyrus, and paracentral lobule. SMA, regions of the inferior and superior parietal lobule, and cerebellum each contained effector-dependent and effector-independent representations. Machine learning analyses showed that increasing the spatial resolution of the data-driven model increased classification accuracy, which reached 94% with 1755 supervoxels. Our SLIC-based supervoxel parcellation outperformed classification analyses using established brain templates and random simulations. Occlusion experiments further demonstrated redundancy across the sensorimotor network when classifying effectors. Our observations extend our understanding of effector-dependent and effector-independent organization within the human brain and provide new insight into the functional neuroanatomy required to predict the motor effector used in a motor control task.

Highlights • Volumetric abnormalities detected in the perirhinal, entorhinal memory regions. • Volumetric abnormalities detected in key additional brain regions. • Extensive clinical validation of previous Down Syndrome findings included. • Perirhinal and entorhinal involvement in Alzheimer’s etiology hypothesized., Down syndrome (DS) is a genetic disorder caused by the presence of an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21 and characterized by intellectual disability. We hypothesize that performing a retrospective analysis of 73 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examinations of participants with DS (aged 0 to 22 years) and comparing them to a large cohort of 993 brain MRI examinations of neurotypical participants (aged 0 to 32 years), will assist in better understanding what brain differences may explain phenotypic developmental features in DS, as well as to provide valuable confirmation of prospective literature findings clinically. Measurements for both absolute volumes and volumes corrected as a percentage of estimated total intracranial volume (%ETIV) were extracted from each examination. Our results presented novel findings such as volume increases (%ETIV) in the perirhinal cortex, entorhinal cortex, choroid plexus, and Brodmann’s areas (BA) 3a, 3b, and 44, as well as volume decreases (%ETIV) in the white matter of the cuneus, the paracentral lobule, the postcentral gyrus, and the supramarginal gyrus. We also confirmed volumetric brain abnormalities previously discussed in the literature. Findings suggest the presence of volumetric brain abnormalities in DS that can be detected clinically with MRI.

Introduction The projection of the human male urogenital system onto the paracentral lobule has not previously been mapped comprehensively. Aim To map specific urogenital structures onto the primary somatosensory cortex toward a better understanding of sexual response in men. Methods Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we mapped primary somatosensory cortical responses to self-stimulation of the penis shaft, glans, testicles, scrotum, rectum, urethra, prostate, perineum, and nipple. We further compared neural response with erotic and prosaic touch of the penile shaft. Main Outcome Measure We identified the primary mapping site of urogenital structures on the paracentral lobule and identified networks involved in perceiving touch as erotic. Results We mapped sites on the primary somatosensory cortex to which components of the urogenital structures project in men. Evidence is provided that penile cutaneous projection is different from deep penile projection. Similar to a prior report in women, we show that the nipple projects to the same somatosensory cortical region as the genitals. Evidence of differential representation of erotic and nonerotic genital self-stimulation is also provided, the former activating sensory networks other than the primary sensory cortex, indicating a role of “top-down” activity in erotic response. Clinical Implications We map primary sites of projection of urogenital structures to the primary somatosensory cortex and differentiate cortical sites of erotic from nonerotic genital self-stimulation. Strength & Limitations To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive mapping onto the primary somatosensory cortex of the projection of the components of the urogenital system in men and the difference in cortical activation in response to erotic vs nonerotic self-stimulation. The nipple was found to project to the same cortical region as the genitals. Evidence is provided that superficial and deep penile stimulation project differentially to the cortex, suggesting that sensory innervation of the penis is provided by more than the (pudendal) dorsal nerve. Conclusion This study reconciles prior apparently conflicting findings and offers a comprehensive mapping of male genital components to the paracentral lobule. We provide evidence of differential projection of light touch vs pressure applied to the penile shaft, suggesting differential innervation of its superficial, vs deep structure. Similar to the response in women, we found nipple projection to genital areas of the paracentral lobule. We also provide evidence of differential representation of erotic and nonerotic genital self-stimulation, the former activating sensory networks other than the primary sensory cortex, indicating a role of top-down activity in erotic response.

Background It is difficult to distinguish bipolar disorder (BD) from major depressive disorder (MDD), especially with the initial depressive episode. In this study, we compared neural activities of BD and MDD patients during the first-episode (FE) to investigate common and distinct neural activities and further explore predictive indicators in the two diseases. Methods FE-MDD patients were performed resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging and followed up after scanning. After follow-up, FE-MDD patients were regrouped into FE-BD and FE-MDD patients. The study included 24 FE-BD patients, 28 FE-MDD patients, and 30 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC) to investigate neural activities with regional homogeneity (ReHo) analysis among the 3 groups. Results Compared to HC, FE-BD patients displayed significantly higher ReHo values in the superior frontal gyrus, the medial superior frontal gyrus within right-side cerebral hemisphere than FE-MDD patients and HC. Compared to HC, FE-BD and FE-MDD patients displayed significant decreased ReHo values in the paracentral lobule, the precuneus and the median cingulate and paracingulate gyrus within bilateral cerebral hemisphere, and the postcentral gyrus and the precentral gyrus within the right-side. FE-BD displayed significant lower ReHo values than FE-MDD patients in these regions. Limitations The potential effects of medicine, age, course of disease and handedness on results could not be ignored. Conclusions Abnormal neural activities of frontoparietal network may provide common and distinct markers to affective disorders and scientific basis for further prediction researches of affective disorders.

Background Previous studies have found widespread pain processing alterations in the brain in chronic low back pain (cLBP) patients. We aimed to (1) identify brain regions showing altered amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) using MRI and use these regions to discriminate cLBP patients from healthy controls (HCs) and (2) identify brain regions that are sensitive to cLBP pain intensity changes. Methods We compared ALFF differences by MRI between cLBP subjects (90) and HCs (74), conducted a discriminative analysis to validate the results, and explored structural changes in key brain regions of cLBP. We also compared ALFF changes in cLBP patients after pain-exacerbating manoeuvres. Results ALFF was increased in the post-/precentral gyrus (PoG/PrG), paracentral lobule (PCL)/supplementary motor area (SMA), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and grey matter volume was increased in the left ACC in cLBP patients. PCL/SMA ALFF reliably discriminated cLBP patients from HCs in an independent cohort. cLBP patients showed increased ALFF in the insula, amygdala, hippocampal/parahippocampal gyrus, and thalamus and decreased ALFF in the default mode network (DMN) when their spontaneous low back pain intensity increased after the pain-exacerbating manoeuvre. Conclusions Brain low-frequency oscillations in the PCL, SMA, PoG, PrG, and ACC may be associated with the neuropathology of cLBP. Low-frequency oscillations in the insula, amygdala, hippocampal/parahippocampal gyrus, thalamus, and DMN are sensitive to manoeuvre-induced spontaneous back pain intensity changes.

The precuneus is a functionally heterogeneous area located on the medial face of the parietal cortex, wedged between the occipital cortex and the paracentral lobule. In view of its topological positioning, this associative cortex is well-placed to play an important role in multisensory integration, specific aspects of which participate to bodily awareness. However, this potential implication remains unestablished. We assessed bodily awareness longitudinally in 14 rare patients who underwent a surgery for a low-grade glioma mainly infiltrating the precuneus. To determine the brain locus the most frequently affected in patients showing bodily awareness disorders, we first contrasted the resection cavity distributions of patients with versus without bodily awareness disorders. We next applied ‘lesion network mapping’ to identify the networks functionally coupled with lesion locations causing bodily awareness disorder. Bodily awareness disorders were observed in half of patients after surgery, especially alien hand, macrosomatognosia and fading limb. Importantly, a dissociation was revealed between the antero-dorsal precuneus (bodily awareness disorders) and postero-dorsal precuneus (no bodily awareness disorders). Furthermore, bodily awareness disorder-related regions were specifically connected to a network of sensorimotor regions while others were connected with the default network. Altogether, the present findings indicate a critical role of the antero-dorsal precuneus in specific aspects of bodily awareness and in the maintenance of body schema.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with social communication deficits and restricted/repetitive behaviors and is characterized by large-scale atypical subcortical-cortical connectivity, including impaired resting-state functional connectivity between thalamic and sensory regions. Previous studies have typically focused on the abnormal static connectivity in ASD and overlooked potential valuable dynamic patterns in brain connectivity. However, resting-state brain connectivity is indeed highly dynamic, and abnormalities in dynamic brain connectivity have been widely identified in psychiatric disorders. In this study, we investigated the dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC) between 51 intrinsic connectivity networks in 170 individuals with ASD and 195 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls using independent component analysis and a sliding window approach. A hard clustering state analysis and a fuzzy meta-state analysis were conducted respectively, for the exploration of local and global aberrant dynamic connectivity patterns in ASD. We examined the group difference in dFNC between thalamic and sensory networks in each functional state and group differences in four high-dimensional dynamic measures. The results showed that compared with TD controls, individuals with ASD show an increase in transient connectivity between hypothalamus/subthalamus and some sensory networks (right postcentral gyrus, bi paracentral lobule, and lingual gyrus) in certain functional states, and diminished global meta-state dynamics of the whole-brain functional network. In addition, these atypical dynamic patterns are significantly associated with autistic symptoms indexed by the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. These converging results support and extend previous observations regarding hyperconnectivity between thalamic and sensory regions and stable whole-brain functional configuration in ASD. Dynamic brain connectivity may serve as a potential biomarker of ASD and further investigation of these dynamic patterns might help to advance our understanding of behavioral differences in this complex neurodevelopmental disorder.

BackgroundCognitive abilities are impaired by sleep deprivation and can be recovered when sufficient sleep is obtained. Changes in alpha-band oscillations are considered to be highly related to sleep deprivation. The effect of sleep deprivation on brain activation and functional connectivity in the resting-state alpha band remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate how sleep deprivation and recovery sleep could change resting-state alpha-band neural oscillations.MethodsIn this study, thirty young, healthy participants obtained approximately 8 h of normal sleep, followed by 36 h of sleep deprivation. On the following recovery night, subjects underwent recovery sleep. Resting-state EEG after normal sleep, sleep deprivation and recovery sleep was recorded. Power spectrum, source localization and functional connectivity analyses were used to investigate the changes in resting-state alpha-band activity after normal sleep, sleep deprivation and recovery sleep.ResultsThe results showed that the global alpha power spectrum decreased and source activation was notably reduced in the precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex, cingulate gyrus, and paracentral lobule after sleep deprivation. Functional connectivity analysis after sleep deprivation showed a weakened functional connectivity pattern in a widespread network with the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex as the key nodes. Furthermore, the changes caused by sleep deprivation were reversed to a certain extent but not significantly after one night of sleep recovery, which may be due to inadequate time for recovery sleep.ConclusionsIn conclusion, large-scale resting-state alpha-band activation and functional connectivity were weakened after sleep deprivation, and the inhibition of default mode network function with the precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex as the pivotal nodes may be an important cause of cognitive impairment. These findings provide new insight into the physiological response of sleep deprivation and determine how sleep deprivation disrupts brain alpha-band oscillations.

Object control skills are one of the most important abilities in daily life. Knowledge of object manipulation is an essential factor in improving object control skills. Although males and females equally try to use object manipulation knowledge, their object control abilities often differ. To explain this difference, we investigated how structural brain networks in males and females are differentially organized in the tool-preferring areas of the object manipulation network. The structural connectivity between the primary motor and premotor regions and between the inferior parietal regions in males was significantly higher than that in females. However, females showed greater structural connectivity in various regions of the object manipulation network, including the paracentral lobule, inferior parietal regions, superior parietal cortices, MT+ complex and neighboring visual areas, and dorsal stream visual cortex. The global node strength found in the female parietal network was significantly higher than that in males but not for the entire object manipulation, ventral temporal, and motor networks. These findings indicated that the parietal network in females has greater inter-regional structural connectivity to retrieve manipulation knowledge than that in males. This study suggests that differential structural networks in males and females might influence object manipulation knowledge retrieval.

Item does not contain fulltext A fundamental question in affective neuroscience is whether there is a common hedonic system for valence processing independent of modality, or there are distinct neural systems for different modalities. To address this question, we used both region of interest and whole-brain representational similarity analyses on functional magnetic resonance imaging data to identify modality-general and modality-specific brain areas involved in valence processing across visual and auditory modalities. First, region of interest analyses showed that the superior temporal cortex was associated with both modality-general and auditory-specific models, while the primary visual cortex was associated with the visual-specific model. Second, the whole-brain searchlight analyses also identified both modality-general and modality-specific representations. The modality-general regions included the superior temporal, medial superior frontal, inferior frontal, precuneus, precentral, postcentral, supramarginal, paracentral lobule and middle cingulate cortices. The modality-specific regions included both perceptual cortices and higher-order brain areas. The valence representations derived from individualized behavioral valence ratings were consistent with these results. Together, these findings suggest both modality-general and modality-specific representations of valence. 11 p.

Background. Primary blepharospasm (BSP) is one of the most common focal dystonia and its pathophysiological mechanism remains unclear. An unbiased method was used in patients with BSP at rest to observe voxel-wise brain-wide functional connectivity (FC) changes. Method. A total of 48 subjects, including 24 untreated patients with BSP and 24 healthy controls, were recruited to undergo functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The method of global-brain FC (GFC) was adopted to analyze the resting-state fMRI data. We designed the support vector machine (SVM) method to determine whether GFC abnormalities could be utilized to distinguish the patients from the controls. Results. Relative to healthy controls, patients with BSP showed significantly decreased GFC in the bilateral superior medial prefrontal cortex/anterior cingulate cortex (MPFC/ACC) and increased GFC in the right postcentral gyrus/precentral gyrus/paracentral lobule, right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and left paracentral lobule/supplement motor area (SMA), which were included in the default mode network (DMN) and sensorimotor network. SVM analysis showed that increased GFC values in the right postcentral gyrus/precentral gyrus/paracentral lobule could discriminate patients from controls with optimal accuracy, specificity, and sensitivity of 83.33%, 83.33%, and 83.33%, respectively. Conclusion. This study suggested that abnormal GFC in the brain areas associated with sensorimotor network and DMN might underlie the pathophysiology of BSP, which provided a new perspective to understand BSP. GFC in the right postcentral gyrus/precentral gyrus/paracentral lobule might be utilized as a latent biomarker to differentiate patients with BSP from controls.

The central sulcus is an important landmark in the brain. This study aimed to investigate the distinctive signal of the paracentral lobule (PL) on T1-weighted images (T1WIs; the white PL sign) and evaluate its usefulness as a new method of identifying the central sulcus. T1WIs of the brain of 96 participants (age, 58.9 ± 17.9 years; range, 8–87 years) scanned at 3-T MR system were retrospectively reviewed. First, we qualitatively analyzed the signal of the cortex of the PL by comparing it with that of the ipsilateral superior frontal gyrus on a 4-point grading score. Second, we compared the cortical signal intensity and gray/white-matter contrast between the PL and superior frontal gyrus. Third, we evaluated the usefulness of the PL signal for identifying the central sulcus. The PL cortex was either mildly hyperintense (grade 2) or definitely hyperintense (grade 3) in comparison with that of superior frontal cortex in all participants. The signal intensity of the PL cortex was significantly higher than that of the superior frontal cortex (p

Parkinson's disease (PD) is the most universal chronic degenerative neurological dyskinesia and an important threat to elderly health. At present, the researches of PD are mainly based on single-modal data analysis, while the fusion research of multi-modal data may provide more meaningful information in the aspect of comprehending the pathogenesis of PD. In this paper, 104 samples having resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI) and gene data are from Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) and Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database to predict pathological brain areas and risk genes related to PD. In the experiment, Pearson correlation analysis is adopted to conduct fusion analysis from the data of genes and brain areas as multi-modal sample characteristics, and the clustering evolution random forest (CERF) method is applied to detect the discriminative genes and brain areas. The experimental results indicate that compared with several existing advanced methods, the CERF method can further improve the diagnosis of PD and healthy control, and can achieve a significant effect. More importantly, we find that there are some interesting associations between brain areas and genes in PD patients. Based on these associations, we notice that PD-related brain areas include angular gyrus, thalamus, posterior cingulate gyrus and paracentral lobule, and risk genes mainly include C6orf10, HLA-DPB1 and HLA-DOA. These discoveries have a significant contribution to the early prevention and clinical treatments of PD.

Prior research has reported that the medial temporal, parietal, and frontal brain regions are associated with visual statistical learning (VSL). However, the neural mechanisms involved in both memory enhancement and impairment induced by VSL remain unknown. In this study, we examined this issue using event-related fMRI. fMRI data from the familiarization scan showed a difference in the activation level of the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) between structured triplets, where three objects appeared in the same order, and pseudorandom triplets. More importantly, the precentral gyrus and paracentral lobule responded more strongly to Old Turkic letters inserted into the structured triplets than to those inserted into the random triplets, at the end of the familiarization scan. Furthermore, fMRI data from the recognition memory test scan, where participants were asked to decide whether the objects or letters shown were old (presented during familiarization scan) or new, indicated that the middle frontal gyrus and SFG responded more strongly to objects from the structured triplets than to those from the random triplets, which overlapped with the brain regions associated with VSL. In contrast, the response of the lingual gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, and cuneus was weaker to letters inserted into the structured triplets than to those inserted into the random triplets, which did not overlap with the brain regions associated with observing the letters during the familiarization scan. These findings suggest that different brain regions are involved in memory enhancement and impairment induced by VSL.

Previous studies demonstrated the possible involvement of insula in suicide owing to depression. However, the function of insula in young depressed patients with suicide attempt (SA) remains to be revealed. This study aimed to explore the association between resting-state functional connectivity (FC) of insula and SA in young depressed patients. Fifty-eight adolescents and young adults with major depressive disorder, including 22 with a history of at least one SA (SA group) and 36 without a history of SA (NSA group) were scanned with a 3.0T functional magnetic resonance imaging system, and the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data was extracted. Whole brain resting-state FC of insular subdivisions were compared between the two groups. Significantly increased FC of the left posterior insula with the orbital part of left inferior frontal gyrus, the right supplementary motor area and the bilateral paracentral lobule extending to the bilateral middle cingulate cortex was observed in the SA group compared with the NSA group. In addition, the orbital part of left superior frontal gyrus in the SA group exhibited significantly increased FC with the right posterior insula compared with the NSA group. However, no significant correlation was found between the insular subdivisions FC and different clinical variables in two groups. The present study highlighted the disruptions of the resting-state FC of the posterior insula with the orbitofrontal cortex and a series of motor cortices, and added incremental value to the knowledge of the neural mechanism underlying SA in young depressed patients.

Purpose Functional MRI has played a fundamental role in Parkinson's disease(PD) study. In this paper, we performed an independent component analysis (ICA) based on functional networks to reveal the intricate variations on the morphology and functional properties of brain. Our analysis aims at discovering the differences between PD patients with sensorimotor function impairment and normal controls(NC), thus helping to understand the coordination neurological function degeneration in PD objectively. Method We investigated the blood oxygen level dependent(BOLD) functional MRI obtained at a 3.0 T MRI scanner. 30 PD patients and 28 NC subjects underwent the scan in resting state. The signals of sensory and motor coordinative control areas in the sensorimotor, insula and cerebellum networks acquired by ICA(Independent Component Analysis)were applied to analyze the functional alterations. Specifically, intra-network analysis was performed with signals in local networks, and inter-network analysis was conducted by functional network connectivity (FNC) with signals across different networks. Two sample T test was carried out to detect the significant (p Conclusion We identified an obvious increase in bilateral posterior insula, but decrease in bilateral cerebellum hemisphere, supplementary motor area(SMA) and precentral gyrus paracentral lobule of left postcentral gyrus. Besides, we found a significantly increased connection between independent component (IC) 13 which was located in right postcentral gyrus and cerebellum. Decreased connections were detected between sensory and motor cortex in sensorimotor network and between cerebellum and insula network by FNC analysis in PD patients as well. Discussion Parkinson's disease derives from the degeneration of the dopaminergic neurons in substantia nigra, and results in decreased secretion of inhibitory neurotransmitter. The significant differences between PD and NC groups in our research maybe explain the clinical manifestations of prominent bradykinesia and multiple extrapyramidal symptoms.

As a complex psychiatric disorder, schizophrenia is interpreted as a “dysconnection” syndrome, which is linked to abnormal integrations in between distal brain regions. Recently, neuroimaging has been widely adopted to investigate how schizophrenia affects brain networks. Furthermore, some studies reported frequency dependence of the abnormalities of functional network in schizophrenia, however, dynamic functional connectivity with frequency dependence is rarely used to explore changes in the whole brain of patients with schizophrenia (SZ). Therefore, in the current study, dynamic functional connectivity strength (dFCS) was performed on resting-state functional magnetic resonance data from 96 SZ patients and 121 healthy controls (HCs) at slow-5 (0.01–0.027 Hz), slow-4 (0.027–0.073 Hz), slow-3 (0.073–0.198 Hz), and slow-2 (0.198–0.25 Hz) frequency bands and further assessed whether the altered dFCS was correlated to clinical symptoms in SZ patients. Results revealed that decreased dFCS of schizophrenia were found in salience, auditory, sensorimotor, visual networks, while increased dFCS in cerebellum, basal ganglia, and prefrontal networks were observed across different frequency bands. Specifically, the thalamus subregion of schizophrenic patients exhibited enhanced dynamic FCS in slow-5 and slow-4, while reduced in slow-3. Moreover, in slow-5 and slow-4, significant interaction effects between frequency and group were observed in the left calcarine cortex, the bilateral inferior orbitofrontal gyrus, and anterior cingulum cortex (ACC). Furthermore, the altered dFCS of insula, thalamus (THA), calcarine cortex, orbitofrontal gyrus, and paracentral lobule were partial correlated with clinical symptoms of SZ patients in slow-5 and slow-4 bands. These results demonstrate the abnormalities of dFCS in schizophrenia patients is rely on different frequency bands and may provide potential implications for exploring the neuropathological mechanism of schizophrenia.

Objective: In this study, we investigate the brain lateralization in ADHD patients. Furthermore, we also explore the difference between male and female patients, and the difference among distinct ADHD subtypes, that is, ADHD–inattentive (ADHD-IA) and ADHD–combined (ADHD-C). Method: We employed the standard deviation to quantify the variability of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signal and measure the lateralization index (LI). Results: ADHD patients showed significantly increased rightward lateralization in the inferior frontal gyrus (opercular), precuneus, and paracentral lobule, and decreased rightward lateralization in the insula. Compared with male patients, female patients showed significantly rightward lateralization in the putamen and lobule VII of cerebellar hemisphere. ADHD-C patients exhibited increased rightward lateralization in the inferior frontal gyrus (opercular), and decreased rightward lateralization in the inferior temporal gyrus, as compared with ADHD-IA. The LI was also found to be related to inattentive and hyper/impulsive scores. Conclusion: These key findings may aid in understanding the pathology of ADHD.

Dopamine underlies important aspects of cognition, and has been suggested to boost cognitive performance. However, how dopamine modulates the large-scale cortical dynamics during cognitive performance has remained elusive. Using functional MRI during a working memory task in healthy young human listeners (N=22), we investigated the effect of levodopa (L-dopa) on two aspects of cortical dynamics, blood oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal variability and the functional connectome of large-scale cortical networks. We here show that enhanced dopaminergic signaling modulates the two potentially interrelated aspects of large-scale cortical dynamics during cognitive performance, and the degree of these modulations is able to explain inter-individual differences in L-dopa-induced behavioral benefits. Relative to placebo, L-dopa increased BOLD signal variability in task-relevant temporal, inferior frontal, parietal and cingulate regions. On the connectome level, however, L-dopa diminished functional integration across temporal and cingulo-opercular regions. This hypo-integration was expressed as a reduction in network efficiency and modularity in more than two thirds of the participants and to different degrees. Hypo-integration co-occurred with relative hyper-connectivity in paracentral lobule and precuneus, as well as posterior putamen. Both, L-dopa-induced BOLD signal variability modulation and functional connectome modulations proved predictive of an individual’s L-dopa-induced gain in behavioral performance, namely response speed and perceptual sensitivity. Lastly, L-dopa-induced modulations of BOLD signal variability were correlated with L-dopa-induced modulation of nodal connectivity and network efficiency. Our findings underline the role of dopamine in maintaining the dynamic range of, and communication between, cortical systems, and their explanatory power for inter-individual differences in benefits from dopamine during cognitive performance.

Background Schizophrenia is a clinical syndrome, and its causes have not been well determined. The objective of this study was to investigate the alteration of brain functional connectivity between schizophrenia and healthy control, and present a practical solution for accurately identifying schizophrenia at single-subject level. Methods 24 schizophrenia patients and 21 matched healthy subjects were recruited to undergo the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scanning. First, we constructed the brain network by calculating the Pearson correlation coefficient between each pair of the brain regions. Then, this study proposed a novel non-negative discriminant functional connectivity selection method, i.e. non-negative elastic-net based method (N2EN), to extract the alteration of brain functional connectivity between schizophrenia and healthy control. It ranks the significance of the connectivity with a uniform criterion by introducing the non-negative constraint. Finally, kernel discriminant analysis (KDA) is exploited to classify the subjects with the selected discriminant brain connectivity features. Results The proposed method is applied into schizophrenia classification, and achieves the sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of 100, 90.48 and 95.56%, respectively. Our findings also indicate the alteration of functional network can be used as the biomarks for guiding the schizophrenia diagnosis. The regions of cuneus, superior frontal gyrus, medial, paracentral lobule, calcarine fissure, surrounding cortex, etc. are highly relevant to schizophrenia. Conclusions This study provides a method for accurately identifying schizophrenia, which outperforms several state-of-the-art methods, including conventional brain network classification, multi-threshold brain network based classification, frequent sub-graph based brain network classification and support vector machine. Our investigation suggested that the selected discriminant resting-state functional connectivities are meaningful features for classifying schizophrenia and healthy control.

This study investigated the topological characteristics of brain functional networks in chronic insomnia disorder (CID) patients. The resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and graph theory analysis method were applied to investigate the brain functional connectome patterns among 45 CID patients and 32 healthy controls. The brain functional connectome was constructed by thresholding partial correlation matrices of 90 brain regions from an automated anatomical labeling atlas. The topologic properties of brain functional connectomes at both global and nodal levels were tested. The CID patients had decreased number of module (p = .014) and hierarchy (p = .038), and increased assortativity (p = .035). Furthermore, some brain regions located in the default mode network, dorsal attention network, and sensory-motor network in these patients showed altered nodal centralities. Within these areas, the node betweenness of right central paracentral lobule had positive correlation with the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index score (R = 0.319, p = .039). The results imply that functional disruptions of CID patients may be related to disruptions in global and regional topological organization of the brain functional connectome, and provide new and important insights to understand the pathophysiological mechanisms of CID., Highlights • Chronic insomnia disorder (CID) patients had disrupted global topological properties. • Many brain regions of CID patients showed altered nodal centralities involving three different resting networks. • Functional disruption of right central paracentral lobule may be a target for therapeutic intervention in pediatric CID. • The disruption of topological organization might be explain the mechanism/reason of functional disruptions of CID.

Previous studies using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have found abnormal functional connectivity in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Yet, effect of distance thresholds on local functional connectivity changes in MDD is largely unknown. Here, we used resting-state fMRI data and functional connectivity strength (FCS) method to test local functional connectivity differences at different distance thresholds between 47 drug-naive patients with MDD and 47 healthy controls. For the distribution of functional brain hubs with high local FCS, the overall changing trend from distance thresholds of 10mm to 100mm was from lateral to medial. Compared to controls, MDD patients exhibited decreased local FCS independent of distance threshold in the sensorimotor system (postcentral gyrus, paracentral lobule, and supplementary motor area). MDD Patients exhibited increased local FCS in the inferior temporal gyrus at two lower distance thresholds (20mm and 30mm) and a higher distance threshold (100mm). In addition, MDD patients showed increased local FCS in the putamen at higher distance thresholds (80-100mm). These findings suggest that local functional connectivity abnormalities in MDD are dependent on distance thresholds and that future studies should take the distance thresholds into account when measuring local functional connectivity in MDD.

Theta burst stimulation (TBS) has emerged as a promising tool for the treatment of swallowing disorders; however, the short-term after-effects of brain activation induced by TBS remain unknown. Here, we measured the changes in spontaneous brain activation using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) approach in subjects who underwent different TBS protocols. Sixty right-handed healthy participants (male, n=30; female, n=30; mean age=23.5y) were recruited in this study and randomly assigned to three groups that underwent three different TBS protocols. In group 1, continuous TBS (cTBS) was positioned on the left hemisphere of the suprahyoid muscle cortex. For group 2, intermittent TBS (iTBS) was placed on the left hemisphere of the suprahyoid muscle cortex. Group 3 underwent combined cTBS/iTBS protocols in which iTBS on the right hemisphere was performed immediately after completing cTBS on the left suprahyoid muscle cortex. Compared to pre-TBS, post-cTBS showed decreased ALFF in the anterior cingulate gyrus (BA 32); post-iTBS induced an increase in ALFF in the bilateral precuneus (BA 7); and post-cTBS/iTBS induced a decrease in ALFF in the brainstem, and resulted in increased ALFF in the middle cingulate gyrus (BA 24) as well as the left precentral gyrus (BA 6). Compared the effect of post-TBS protocols, increased ALFF was found in left posterior cerebellum lobe and left inferior parietal lobule (BA 40) (post-cTBS vs post-iTBS), and decreased ALFF exhibited in paracentral lobule (BA 4) (post-iTBS vs post-cTBS/iTBS). These findings indicate that multiple brain areas involved in swallowing regulation after stimulation of TBS over the suprahyoid muscles. cTBS induces decreased after-effects while iTBS results in increased after-effects on spontaneous brain activation. Moreover, iTBS can eliminate the after-effects of cTBS applied on the contralateral swallowing cortex and alter the activity of contralateral motor cortex and brainstem. Our findings provide a novel evidence for the short-term effect of TBS on spontaneous brain activation.

Shortly after movement termination, there is a strong increase or resynchronization of the beta rhythm (15–30 Hz) across the sensorimotor network of humans, known as the post-movement beta rebound (PMBR). This response has been associated with active inhibition of the motor network following the completion of a movement, sensory afferentation of the sensorimotor cortices, and other functions. However, studies that have directly probed the role of the PMBR in movement execution have reported mixed results, possibly due to differences in the amount of total motor output and/or movement complexity. Herein, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) during an isometric-force control task to examine whether alterations in the timing of motor termination demands modulate the PMBR, independent of differences in the motor output itself. Briefly, we manipulated the amount of time between the cue to initiate the force and the cue to terminate the force, such that participants were either forced to terminate quickly or slowly. We also performed a control experiment to test for temporal predictability effects. Our results indicated that the PMBR was stronger immediately following movement termination in the prefrontal cortices, supplementary motor area, left postcentral gyrus, paracentral lobule, and parietal cortex when participants were forced to terminate more quickly. These results were not attributable to the temporal predictability of each condition. These findings support the notion that the PMBR response at least partially serves motor inhibition, independent of parameters within the motor output itself, and that particular nodes of the motor network may be differentially modulated by motor termination.

Early life exposure to air pollution poses a significant risk to brain development from direct exposure to toxicants or via indirect mechanisms involving the circulatory, pulmonary or gastrointestinal systems. In children, exposure to traffic related air pollution has been associated with adverse effects on cognitive, behavioral and psychomotor development. We aimed to determine whether childhood exposure to traffic related air pollution is associated with regional differences in brain volume and cortical thickness among children enrolled in a longitudinal cohort study of traffic related air pollution and child health. We used magnetic resonance imaging to obtain anatomical brain images from a nested subset of 12 year old participants characterized with either high or low levels of traffic related air pollution exposure during their first year of life. We employed voxel-based morphometry to examine group differences in regional brain volume, and with separate analyses, changes in cortical thickness. Smaller regional gray matter volumes were determined in the left pre- and post-central gyri, the cerebellum, and inferior parietal lobe of participants in the high traffic related air pollution exposure group relative to participants with low exposure. Reduced cortical thickness was observed in participants with high exposure relative to those with low exposure, primarily in sensorimotor regions of the brain including the pre- and post-central gyri and the paracentral lobule, but also within the frontal and limbic regions. These results suggest that significant childhood exposure to traffic related air pollution is associated with structural alterations in brain.

The right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG) is a key cortical node in the circuits of emotion and cognitive control, and it has been frequently associated with bipolar disorder (BP); however, a reliable pattern of aberrant rIFG activation and connectivity in bipolar disorder has yet to be established. To further elucidate rIFG abnormalities in different states of bipolar disorder, we examined activation and functional connectivity (FC) in five subregions of rIFG in bipolar disorder. A total of 83 participants, including those with bipolar depression (BPD; n = 25) and bipolar mania (BPM; n = 37) along with healthy control (HC) subjects (n = 26), were examined by resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Both BPD and BPM groups showed higher values of amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) than healthy control in four of the five rIFG subregions except cluster 2(posterior-ventral rIFG). Using five subregions of rIFG as seeds, the decreased FC in bipolar disorder was mainly between posterior-ventral rIFG(cluster 2) and multiple brain regions including the postcentral gyrus, the precentral gyrus, paracentral lobule, lingual Gyrus, fusiform and cerebellum posterior lobe. These results indicated that local activity and FC were altered within specific subregions of the rIFG in BP. These findings may provide the distinct functional connectivity of rIFG subregions in BP and suggest that the cluster2 (posterior-ventral rIFG) circuitry plays a crucial role in BP. Also, such abnormalities might help define a more precise intervention targets.

Impulsivity is a personality trait associated with many maladaptive behaviors. Trait impulsivity is typically divided into three different dimensions, including attentional impulsiveness, motor impulsiveness, and non-planning impulsiveness. In the present study, we examined the neuroanatomical basis of the multidimensional impulsivity trait. Eighty-four healthy participants were studied with structural magnetic resonance imaging. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the score of motor impulsiveness was negatively correlated with gray matter volumes of the right supplementary motor area and paracentral lobule. A machine-learning-based prediction analysis indicated that decreased gray matter volumes of the supplementary motor area and paracentral lobule strongly predicted the decrease in motor impulsiveness control. Our findings provide insights into the predictive role of motor brain structures in motor impulsivity and inhibition control.

Objective:To determine whether volumetric measures of the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and other cortical measures can differentiate between cognitively normal individuals and subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).Method:Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from 46 cognitively normal subjects and 50 subjects with MCI as part of the Boston University Alzheimer’s Disease Center research registry and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were used in this cross-sectional study. Cortical, subcortical, and hippocampal subfield volumes were generated from each subject’s MRI data using FreeSurfer v6.0. Nominal logistic regression models containing these variables were used to identify subjects as control or MCI.Results:A model containing regions of interest (superior temporal cortex, caudal anterior cingulate, pars opercularis, subiculum, precentral cortex, caudal middle frontal cortex, rostral middle frontal cortex, pars orbitalis, middle temporal cortex, insula, banks of the superior temporal sulcus, parasubiculum, paracentral lobule) fit the data best (R2= .7310, whole model test chi-square = 97.16,p< .0001).Conclusions:MRI data correctly classified most subjects using measures of selected medial temporal lobe structures in combination with those from other cortical areas, yielding an overall classification accuracy of 93.75%. These findings support the notion that, while volumes of medial temporal lobe regions differ between cognitively normal and MCI subjects, differences that can be used to distinguish between these two populations are present elsewhere in the brain.

Previous research has reported reduced efficiency in reactive inhibition, along with reduced brain activations, in older adults. The current study investigated age-related behavioral and neural changes in proactive inhibition, and whether age may influence the relationship between proactive and reactive inhibition. One-hundred-and-forty-nine adults (18 to 72 years) underwent fMRI while performing a stop signal task (SST). Proactive inhibition was defined by the sequential effect, the correlation between the estimated probability of stop signal – p(Stop) – and go trial reaction time (goRT). P(Stop) was estimated trial by trial with a Bayesian belief model; reactive inhibition was defined by the stop signal reaction time (SSRT). Behaviorally the magnitude of sequential effect was not correlated with age, replicating earlier reports of spared proactive control in older adults. Age was associated with greater activations to p(Stop) in the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), paracentral lobule, superior parietal lobule, and cerebellum, and activations to goRT in the inferior occipital gyrus (IOG). Granger Causality analysis demonstrated that the PFC Granger caused IOG, with the PFC-IOG connectivity significantly correlated with p(Stop) in older but not younger adults. These findings suggest that the PFC and IOG activations and PFC-IOG connectivity may compensate for proactive control during aging. In contrast, while the activations of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and caudate head to p(Stop) were negatively correlated with SSRT, relating proactive to reactive control, these activities did not vary with age. These findings highlighted distinct neural processes underlying proactive inhibition and limited neural plasticity to support cognitive control in the aging brain.

Contralateral intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) can potentially improve swallowing disorders with unilateral lesion of the swallowing cortex. However, the after-effects of iTBS on brain excitability remain largely unknown. Here, we investigated the alterations of temporal dynamics of inter-regional connectivity induced by iTBS following continuous TBS (cTBS) in the contralateral suprahyoid muscle cortex. A total of 20 right-handed healthy subjects underwent cTBS over the left suprahyoid muscle motor cortex and then immediately afterward, iTBS was applied to the contralateral homologous area. All of the subjects underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (Rs-fMRI) pre- and post-TBS implemented on a different day. We compared the static and dynamic functional connectivity (FC) between the post-TBS and the baseline. The whole-cortical time series and a sliding-window correlation approach were used to quantify the dynamic characteristics of FC. Compared with the baseline, for static FC measurement, increased FC was found in the precuneus (BA 19), left fusiform gyrus (BA 37), and right pre/post-central gyrus (BA 4/3), and decreased FC was observed in the posterior cingulate gyrus (PCC) (BA 29) and left inferior parietal lobule (BA 39). However, in the dynamic FC analysis, post-TBS showed reduced FC in the left angular and PCC in the early windows, and in the following windows, increased FC in multiple cortical areas including bilateral pre- and postcentral gyri and paracentral lobule and non-sensorimotor areas including the prefrontal, temporal and occipital gyrus, and brain stem. Our results indicate that iTBS reverses the aftereffects induced by cTBS on the contralateral suprahyoid muscle cortex. Dynamic FC analysis displayed a different pattern of alteration compared with the static FC approach in brain excitability induced by TBS. Our results provide novel evidence for us in understanding the topographical and temporal aftereffects linked to brain excitability induced by different TBS protocols and might be valuable information for their application in the rehabilitation of deglutition.

Focal application of a strong static magnetic field over the human scalp induces measurable local changes in brain function. Whether it also induces distant effects across the brain and how these local and distant effects collectively affect motor behavior remains unclear. Here we applied transcranial static magnetic field stimulation (tSMS) over the supplementary motor area (SMA) in healthy subjects. At a behavioral level, tSMS increased the time to initiate movement while decreasing errors in choice reaction-time tasks. At a functional level, tSMS increased SMA resting-state fMRI activity and bilateral functional connectivity between the SMA and both the paracentral lobule and the lateral frontotemporal cortex, including the inferior frontal gyrus. These results suggest that tSMS over the SMA can induce behavioral aftereffects associated with modulation of both local and distant functionally-connected cortical circuits involved in the control of speed-accuracy tradeoffs, thus offering a promising protocol for cognitive and clinical research., Pineda-Pardo et al. show that focal application of a strong permanent magnet over the supplementary motor area shifts the speed-accuracy tradeoff towards accuracy by modulating both cortical circuits and distant cortical networks. This study suggests the utility of transcranial static magnetic field stimulation for cognitive research.

The gold standard for clinical assessment of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) relies on assessing behavior via semi-structured play-based interviews and parent interviews. Although these methods show good sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing ASD cases, behavioral assessments alone may hinder the identification of asymptomatic at-risk group. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) could be an appropriate approach to produce objective neural markers to supplement behavioral assessments due to its non-invasive and task-free nature. Previous neuroimaging studies reported inconsistent resting-state abnormalities in ASD, which may be explained by small sample sizes and phenotypic heterogeneity in ASD subjects, and/or the use of different analytical methods across studies. The current study aims to investigate the local resting-state abnormalities of ASD regardless of subject age, IQ, gender, disease severity and methodological differences, using activation likelihood estimation (ALE). MEDLINE/PubMed databases were searched for whole-brain rs-fMRI studies on ASD published until Feb 2018. Eight experiments involving 424 subjects were included in the ALE meta-analysis. We demonstrate two ASD-related resting-state findings: local underconnectivity in the dorsal posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and in the right medial paracentral lobule. This study contributes to uncovering a consistent pattern of resting-state local abnormalities that may serve as potential neurobiological markers for ASD.

This study aimed to investigate the effects of lesion side and degree of motor recovery on gray matter volume (GMV) difference relative to healthy controls in right-handed subcortical stroke. Structural MRI data were collected in 97 patients with chronic subcortical ischemic stroke and 79 healthy controls. Voxel-wise GMV analysis was used to investigate the effects of lesion side and degree of motor recovery on GMV difference in right-handed chronic subcortical stroke patients. Compared with healthy controls, right-lesion patients demonstrated GMV increase (P, Highlights • There is a lesion-side effect on gray matter volume in subcortical stroke patients. • Right-sided stroke patients show more extensive GMV changes than left-sided ones. • GMV increase in the SMA may facilitate to motor recovery after stroke.

The overestimation of the relationship between fear-relevant stimuli and aversive consequences, a so called covariation bias, might contribute to the maintenance of anxiety disorders. In a recent fMRI study, we confronted spider phobia and healthy participants with pictures of spiders, mushrooms and puppies, randomly followed by painful electric stimuli (US). Spider phobics overestimated the spider-US association and displayed enhanced activity in US-related sensorimotor cortex (paracentral lobule, PCL). Here, we report results from an additional functional connectivity analysis. Within spider phobics but not in healthy controls, USs after spiders led to enhanced connectivity between PCL and left prefrontal cortex (PFC). Most importantly, covariation bias in spider phobia was predicted by connectivity between PCL and visual cortex, insula, primary sensorimotor cortex and secondary somatosensory cortex. Reduced covariation bias was predicted by connectivity between PCL and PFC. In response to spider pictures, the amygdala was functionally connected to somatosensory and visual areas. These results suggest that synchronous activity of sensory cortices may promote fear-sustaining associative memory bias, while right PFC might help to reduce bias.

The pathophysiology of vestibular migraine (VM) is at present poorly understood. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a technique that measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow oxygenation, has been used to study neural pathways involved in VM pathophysiology. In this study, we summarize results of previous fMRI studies in VM patients, both during and between vertigo attacks. Moreover, we report our experience in two patients with definite VM, who underwent fMRI during a visual stimulation in a vertigo-free period. Compared with 15 matched healthy controls, fMRI demonstrated activation of brain areas related to integration of visual and vestibular cues (increased activation of the paracentral lobule and bilateral inferior parietal lobule and decreased activation of the left superior frontal gyrus, head of the caudate nucleus, left superior temporal gyrus, left parahippocampal gyrus, and right lingual gyrus). Our results partially confirm those of other authors, reporting increased activation of multimodal association brain areas (BA 40, BA 31/5) and decreased activation of occipital regions In addition, we also found a decreased activation of fronto-temporal areas, such as the parahippocampal region, functionally involved in space memory and navigation.

Background Cognitive impairments are prominent in schizophrenia (SZ). Imaging studies have demonstrated that functional changes of several areas of the brain exist in SZ patients. The relationships between these two indexes are largely unexplored in SZ. The MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB) was used to measure cognitive impairment in multi-dimensional cognitive fields of SZ patients. This study was conducted to explore the relationship between cognitive functional impairment and the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) in SZ patients. Method A total of 104 participants (44 SZ patients and 60 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC)) were recruited for this study. The MCCB was used to assess cognitive function of the participants, while brain activity was assessed using the ALFF. The relationship between the MCCB and the ALFF was investigated by using a correlation analysis. Results There were significant differences between SZ patients and HC in MCCB total and domain scores as well as in ALFF results. The reduction of ALFF in the bilateral postcentral gyri and paracentral lobule in SZ patients has a negative correlation with the MCCB sub-test of symbol coding. Conclusion These findings suggest that the reduction of ALFF in bilateral postcentral gyri and paracentral lobule may be related to cognitive impairment in SZ patients. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12888-018-1992-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A new method for classifying the preclinical stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD)and positioning the related brain areas is described in this paper in order to slow the progress of AD. The method is based on multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA)., which is used to classify normal control (NC)participants and patients and find the changes in different brain areas with AD progression. In the classification., each voxel's blood oxygen level dependence (BOLD)signal during resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI)was extracted as the basic features. To reduce the amount of features, principal component analysis (PCA)and two-class support vector machine (SVM)were applied to classify 62 NC participants and 162 different stages of patients, which included 47 subjective cognitive decline (SCD)patients, 60 amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI)patients and 55 AD patients respectively. The accuracy of classification reached to 62.71% in SCD., 70.67% in aMCI and 86.36% in AD (all of them were classified with NC participants). Based on the accuracy, we innovatively combined “weight vectors” in SVM with permutation test as discrimination patterns to further investigate the related brain areas. The discriminating areas, including middle cingulum (right), insula (left)., paracentral lobule (right)and middle temporal (left)are responsible for different cognitive functions and could provide a large application of AD biomarkers. Our method and results suggest the potential of real-time diagnosis and cognitive therapy because of no complex feature calculations.

Background Seizures arising from the precuneus are rare, and few studies have aimed at characterizing the clinical presentation of such seizures within the anatomic context of the frontoparietal circuits. We aimed to characterize the electrophysiological properties and clinical features of seizures arising from the precuneus based on data from stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG). Methods The present retrospective study included 10 patients with medically intractable epilepsy, all of whom were diagnosed with precuneal epilepsy via stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) at Yuquan Hospital and Xuan Wu Hospital between 2014 and 2016. Clinical semiology, scalp electroencephalography (EEG) findings, magnetic resonance images (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET) images were analyzed during phase I preoperative evaluations. Following electrode implantation, the semiological sequence, ictal SEEG evolution, and anatomy of the relevant brain structures were analyzed for each seizure. Results Seven of ten patients reported auras, including body image disturbance (2/7), vestibular responses (2/7), somatosensory auras (1/7), visual auras (1/7), and non-specific auras (1/7). Primary motor manifestations included bilateral asymmetric tonic seizures (BATS) (7/10) and hypermotor seizures (HMS) (3/10). In one patient, epileptiform discharge on interictal EEG occurred ipsilateral to the side of the epileptogenic zone (EZ). Discharge was non-lateralized in the remaining nine patients. In six patients, interictal EEG signals were primarily localized in the temporal–parietal–occipital area. In two patients, ictal onset occurred ipsilateral to the EZ, which was mainly located in the temporal–parietal–occipital area. Two patterns of seizure spread were observed. The first pattern was characterized by BATS activity with ictal spread to the supplementary motor area (SMA), paracentral lobule (PCL), precentral gyrus (PrCG), or postcentral gyrus (PoCG). The second pattern was characterized by HMS activity with ictal spread to middle cingulate cortex (MCC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). Conclusion Aura type (e.g., body image disturbance and vestibular response), BATS, and HMS are the main indicators of precuneal epilepsy. Scalp EEG is of little use when attempting to localize precuneal seizures. Our findings indicate that the clinical characteristics of precuneal epilepsy vary among patients, and that the final electro–clinical phenotype depends on the pattern of seizure spread.