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Author(s): Mahesh Kamate (corresponding author) [1]; Basavanagowda Thanuja [1] Hypoglycemia is defined as a decrease in blood glucose level below 54 mg/dL,[sup.[1]] and the signs and symptoms are manifested usually [...]

Introduction Psychiatric illness affects approximately 1 in 4 people worldwide. (1) Major depressive disorder (MDD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are among the most common and debilitating, with lifetime prevalences of [...], Background: Psychiatric surgery, including deep brain stimulation and stereotactic ablation, is an important treatment option in severe refractory psychiatric illness. Several large trials have demonstrated response rates of approximately 50%, underscoring the need to identify and select responders preoperatively. Recent advances in neuroimaging have brought this possibility into focus. We systematically reviewed the psychiatric surgery neuroimaging literature to assess the current state of evidence for preoperative imaging predictors of response. Methods: We performed this study in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and MetaAnalyses (PRISMA) and Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) frameworks, and preregistered it using PROSPERO. We systematically searched the Medline, Embase and Cochrane databases for studies reporting preoperative neuroimaging analyses correlated with clinical outcomes in patients who underwent psychiatric surgery. We recorded and synthesized the methodological details, imaging results and clinical correlations from these studies. Results: After removing duplicates, the search yielded 8388 unique articles, of which 7 met the inclusion criteria. The included articles were published between 2001 and 2018 and reported on the outcomes of 101 unique patients. Of the 6 studies that reported significant findings, all identified clusters of hypermetabolism, hyperconnectivity or increased size in the frontostriatal limbic circuitry. Limitations: The included studies were few and highly varied, spanning 2 decades. Conclusion: Although few studies have analyzed preoperative imaging for predictors of response to psychiatric surgery, we found consistency among the reported results: most studies implicated overactivity in the frontostriatal limbic network as being correlated with clinical response. Larger prospective studies are needed. Registration: www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record. php?RecordID=131151.

Author(s): Hirokazu Kumazaki [sup.1] , Taro Muramatsu [sup.2] , Masutomo Miyao [sup.3] , Ken-ichi Okada [sup.4] , Masaru Mimura [sup.2] , Mitsuru Kikuchi [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) grid.9707.9, 0000 0001 [...], Olfactory adaptation is an important process that allows the individual to adjust to changes in the environment. This process has been proposed to be aberrant in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, few studies have examined olfactory adaptation in children with ASD. We examined olfactory adaptation in children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children using a pulse ejection system, which resolved problems associated with previous laboratory-based olfactory psychophysical studies. Nine children with ASD and nine TD children participated in this study and all participants completed the entire experiment. Using this system, we found that the TD group showed greater adaptation than the ASD group. Our results provide a better understanding of olfactory adaptation in children with ASD.

Author(s): Julia S. Y. Tang [sup.1] [sup.2] , Marita Falkmer [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] , Nigel T. M. Chen [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.4] , Sven BÓ§lte [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.5] [sup.6] , Sonya [...], Recent years have seen an emergence of social emotional computer games for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). These games are heterogeneous in design with few underpinned by theoretically informed approaches to computer-based interventions. Guided by the serious game framework outlined by Whyte et al. (Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders 45(12):1-12, 2014 (See CR77)), this study aimed to identify the key motivating and learning features for serious games targeting emotion recognition skills from the perspectives of 11 youth with ASD and 11 experienced professionals. Results demonstrated that youth emphasised the motivating aspects of game design, while the professionals stressed embedding elements facilitating the generalisation of acquired skills. Both complementary and differing views provide suggestions for the application of serious game principles in a potential serious game.

Author(s): Daniel A. Nation [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] , Melanie D. Sweeney [sup.1] , Axel Montagne [sup.1] , Abhay P. Sagare [sup.1] , Lina M. D'Orazio [sup.2] [sup.4] , Maricarmen Pachicano [...], Vascular contributions to cognitive impairment are increasingly recognized.sup.1-5 as shown by neuropathological.sup.6,7, neuroimaging.sup.4,8-11, and cerebrospinal fluid biomarker.sup.4,12 studies. Moreover, small vessel disease of the brain has been estimated to contribute to approximately 50% of all dementias worldwide, including those caused by Alzheimer's disease (AD).sup.3,4,13. Vascular changes in AD have been typically attributed to the vasoactive and/or vasculotoxic effects of amyloid-[beta] (A[beta]).sup.3,11,14, and more recently tau.sup.15. Animal studies suggest that A[beta] and tau lead to blood vessel abnormalities and blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown.sup.14-16. Although neurovascular dysfunction.sup.3,11 and BBB breakdown develop early in AD.sup.1,4,5,8-10,12,13, how they relate to changes in the AD classical biomarkers A[beta] and tau, which also develop before dementia.sup.17, remains unknown. To address this question, we studied brain capillary damage using a novel cerebrospinal fluid biomarker of BBB-associated capillary mural cell pericyte, soluble platelet-derived growth factor receptor-[beta].sup.8,18, and regional BBB permeability using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging.sup.8-10. Our data show that individuals with early cognitive dysfunction develop brain capillary damage and BBB breakdown in the hippocampus irrespective of Alzheimer's A[beta] and/or tau biomarker changes, suggesting that BBB breakdown is an early biomarker of human cognitive dysfunction independent of A[beta] and tau. Neuroimaging and cerebrospinal fluid analyses in humans reveal that loss of blood-brain barrier integrity and brain capillary pericyte damage are early biomarkers of cognitive impairment that occur independently of changes in amyloid-[beta] and tau.

Author(s): Helen Shen Author Affiliations: Illustration by Andy Potts; Photos from Getty How to see a memory For someone who's not a Sherlock superfan, cognitive neuroscientist Janice Chen knows the [...], Every memory leaves its own imprint in the brain, and researchers are starting to work out what one looks like. Every memory leaves its own imprint in the brain, and researchers are starting to work out what one looks like.

Introduction Autism is a spectrum disorder characterized by a triad of symptoms including disrupted social and communicative abilities, as well as repetitive/stereotyped behaviors. Both philosophers and psychologists agree that our [...], This fMRI study investigated neural responses while making appraisals of self and other, across the social and academic domains, in children and adolescents with and without autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Compared to neurotypical youth, those with ASD exhibited hypoactivation of ventromedial prefrontal cortex during self-appraisals. Responses in middle cingulate cortex (MCC) and anterior insula (AI) also distinguished between groups. Stronger activity in MCC and AI during self-appraisals was associated with better social functioning in the ASD group. Although self-appraisals were significantly more positive in the neurotypical group, positivity was unrelated to brain activity in these regions. Together, these results suggest that multiple brain regions support making self-appraisals in neurotypical development, and function atypically in youth with ASD. Keywords Autism * Self * Ventral mPFC * Anterior insula * Middle cingulate cortex * Development

Altered white matter (WM) development is examined in youth at high familial risk for bipolar disorder (BD). WM is then shown to go through significant maturational changes in adolescence. Diffusion tensor imaging is also applied to compare age-related changes in WM microstructure in healthy offspring having a parent with BD and in healthy controls.

One-hundred-and-two years after the term schizophrenia was first used, this disorder remains one of the most serious, disabling and baffling brain diseases. Modern imaging techniques (Fig. 1) have been very [...], Functional and structural brain imaging has identified neural and neurotransmitter systems involved in schizophrenia and their link to cognitive and behavioural disturbances such as psychosis. Mapping such abnormalities in patients, however, cannot fully capture the strong neurodevelopmental component of schizophrenia that pre-dates manifest illness. A recent strategy to address this issue has been to focus on mechanisms of disease risk. Imaging genetics techniques have made it possible to define neural systems that mediate heritable risk linked to candidate and genome-wide-supported common variants, and mechanisms for environmental risk and gene-environment interactions are emerging. Characterizing the neural risk architecture of schizophrenia provides a translational research strategy for future treatments.

A study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy and accuracy of clinical examination in distinguishing between a hemorrhagic stroke and an ischemic stroke. Results indicated that certain findings do accurately increase or decrease the probability of hemorrhagic stroke; however, no finding is definitely diagnostic for which neuroimaging is necessary.

Longitudinal neuroimaging investigation of fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common cause of inherited intellectual disability and autism, provides an opportunity to study the influence of a specific genetic factor on neurodevelopment in the living human brain. We examined voxel-wise gray and white matter volumes (GMV, WMV) over a 2-year period in 1- to 3-year-old boys with FXS (n = 41) and compared these findings to age- and developmentally matched controls (n = 28). We found enlarged GMV in the caudate, thalamus, and fusiform gyri and reduced GMV in the cerebellar vermis in FXS at both timepoints, suggesting early, possibly prenatal, genetically mediated alterations in neurodevelopment. In contrast, regions in which initial GMV was similar, followed by an altered growth trajectory leading to increased size in FXS, such as the orbital gyri, basal forebrain, and thalamus, suggests delayed or otherwise disrupted synaptic pruning occurring postnatally. WMV of striatal-prefrontal regions was greater in FXS compared with controls, and group differences became more exaggerated over time, indicating the possibility that such WM abnormalities are the result of primary FMRP-deficiency-related axonal pathology, as opposed to secondary connectional dysregulation between morphologically atypical brain structures. Our results indicate that structural abnormalities of different brain regions in FXS evolve differently over time reflecting time-dependent effects of FMRP deficiency and provide insight into their neuropathologic underpinnings. The creation of an early and accurate human brain phenotype for FXS in humans will significantly improve our capability to detect whether new disease-specific treatments can 'rescue' the FXS phenotype in affected individuals. early childhood | longitudinal | MRI | voxel-based morphometry doi: 10.1073/pnas.1002762107

As with phrenology and the polygraph, society is again confronted with a device that the media claims is capable of reading our minds. Functional magnetic resonance imaging ("fMRI"), along with [...]

Author(s): Harmanpreet Tiwana [sup.1] , Himadri Patel [sup.1] , Sheila Asghar [sup.1] , Ashutosh Kumar [sup.1] , Michael Freeman [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) 0000 0004 0543 9901, grid.240473.6, Penn State [...]

Introduction In the last decade, functional neuroimaging research in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has resulted in an explosion of new data implicating the brain circuits involved in the pathophysiology of [...], Background: In an attempt to avoid unknown influence, most neuroimaging studies examining the pathophysiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exclude patients taking medications. Here we review the empirical evidence for relevant medications having a confounding effect on task performance or cerebral blood flow (CBF) in this population. The evidence for potentially confounding effects of psychotherapy in PTSD are also discussed. Methods: The literature that we reviewed was obtained through a PubMed search from 1980 to 2009 using the search terms posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD, psychotropic medications, neuroimaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, cerebral blood flow, CBF, serotonin-specific reuptake blocker, benzodiazepine, ketamine, methamphetamine, lamotrigine and atypical antipsychotic agents. Results: The empirical evidence for relevant medications having a confounding effect on task performance or CBF in relevant areas remains sparse for most psychotropic medications among patients with PTSD. However, considerable evidence is accumulating for 2 of the most commonly prescribed medication classes (serotonin-specific reuptake inhibitors and benzodiazepines) in healthy controls. Compelling data for the potentially confounding effects on brain areas relevant to PTSD for psychotherapeutic interventions are also accumulating. Conclusion: Neuroimaging studies examining the pathophysiology of PTSD should ideally recruit both medicated (assuming that the medication treatment has not resulted in the remission of symptoms) and unmedicated participants, to allow the findings to be generalized with greater confidence to the entire population of patients with PTSD. More research is needed into the independent effects of medications on task performance and CBF in regions of interest in PTSD. Neuroimaging studies should also take into account whether patients are currently engaged in psychotherapeutic treatment.