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Jacob SM, Lee S, Kim SH, Sharkey KA, Pfeffer G, Nguyen MD. Brain-body mechanisms contribute to sexual dimorphism in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Nat Rev Neurol 2024; 20:475-494. [PMID: 38965379 DOI: 10.1038/s41582-024-00991-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/07/2024] [Indexed: 07/06/2024]
Abstract
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most common form of human motor neuron disease. It is characterized by the progressive degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons, leading to generalized motor weakness and, ultimately, respiratory paralysis and death within 3-5 years. The disease is shaped by genetics, age, sex and environmental stressors, but no cure or routine biomarkers exist for the disease. Male individuals have a higher propensity to develop ALS, and a different manifestation of the disease phenotype, than female individuals. However, the mechanisms underlying these sex differences remain a mystery. In this Review, we summarize the epidemiology of ALS, examine the sexually dimorphic presentation of the disease and highlight the genetic variants and molecular pathways that might contribute to sex differences in humans and animal models of ALS. We advance the idea that sexual dimorphism in ALS arises from the interactions between the CNS and peripheral organs, involving vascular, metabolic, endocrine, musculoskeletal and immune systems, which are strikingly different between male and female individuals. Finally, we review the response to treatments in ALS and discuss the potential to implement future personalized therapeutic strategies for the disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarah M Jacob
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Sukyoung Lee
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Seung Hyun Kim
- Department of Neurology, Hanyang University Hospital, Seoul, South Korea
| | - Keith A Sharkey
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Gerald Pfeffer
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Department of Medical Genetics, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
| | - Minh Dang Nguyen
- Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
- Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
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2
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Lee J, Ji S, Oh SH. So You Want to Image Myelin Using MRI: Magnetic Susceptibility Source Separation for Myelin Imaging. Magn Reson Med Sci 2024; 23:291-306. [PMID: 38644201 PMCID: PMC11234950 DOI: 10.2463/mrms.rev.2024-0001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/05/2024] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 04/23/2024] Open
Abstract
In MRI, researchers have long endeavored to effectively visualize myelin distribution in the brain, a pursuit with significant implications for both scientific research and clinical applications. Over time, various methods such as myelin water imaging, magnetization transfer imaging, and relaxometric imaging have been developed, each carrying distinct advantages and limitations. Recently, an innovative technique named as magnetic susceptibility source separation has emerged, introducing a novel surrogate biomarker for myelin in the form of a diamagnetic susceptibility map. This paper comprehensively reviews this cutting-edge method, providing the fundamental concepts of magnetic susceptibility, susceptibility imaging, and the validation of the diamagnetic susceptibility map as a myelin biomarker that indirectly measures myelin content. Additionally, the paper explores essential aspects of data acquisition and processing, offering practical insights for readers. A comparison with established myelin imaging methods is also presented, and both current and prospective clinical and scientific applications are discussed to provide a holistic understanding of the technique. This work aims to serve as a foundational resource for newcomers entering this dynamic and rapidly expanding field.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jongho Lee
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Sooyeon Ji
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
| | - Se-Hong Oh
- Biomedical Engineering, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Yongin, Korea
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Ceolini E, Ridderinkhof KR, Ghosh A. Age-related behavioral resilience in smartphone touchscreen interaction dynamics. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2024; 121:e2311865121. [PMID: 38861610 PMCID: PMC11194488 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2311865121] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/12/2023] [Accepted: 05/09/2024] [Indexed: 06/13/2024] Open
Abstract
We experience a life that is full of ups and downs. The ability to bounce back after adverse life events such as the loss of a loved one or serious illness declines with age, and such isolated events can even trigger accelerated aging. How humans respond to common day-to-day perturbations is less clear. Here, we infer the aging status from smartphone behavior by using a decision tree regression model trained to accurately estimate the chronological age based on the dynamics of touchscreen interactions. Individuals (N = 280, 21 to 87 y of age) expressed smartphone behavior that appeared younger on certain days and older on other days through the observation period that lasted up to ~4 y. We captured the essence of these fluctuations by leveraging the mathematical concept of critical transitions and tipping points in complex systems. In most individuals, we find one or more alternative stable aging states separated by tipping points. The older the individual, the lower the resilience to forces that push the behavior across the tipping point into an older state. Traditional accounts of aging based on sparse longitudinal data spanning decades suggest a gradual behavioral decline with age. Taken together with our current results, we propose that the gradual age-related changes are interleaved with more complex dynamics at shorter timescales where the same individual may navigate distinct behavioral aging states from one day to the next. Real-world behavioral data modeled as a complex system can transform how we view and study aging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enea Ceolini
- Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden2333 AK, The Netherlands
- QuantActions, Zurich8001, Switzerland
| | | | - Arko Ghosh
- Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden2333 AK, The Netherlands
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Caban-Rivera DA, Williams LT, McGarry MDJ, Smith DR, Van Houten EEW, Paulsen KD, Bayly PV, Johnson CL. Mechanical Properties of White Matter Tracts in Aging Assessed via Anisotropic MR Elastography. BIORXIV : THE PREPRINT SERVER FOR BIOLOGY 2024:2024.05.08.593260. [PMID: 38766139 PMCID: PMC11100698 DOI: 10.1101/2024.05.08.593260] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/22/2024]
Abstract
Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a promising neuroimaging technique to probe tissue microstructure, which has revealed widespread softening with loss of structural integrity in the aging brain. Traditional MRE approaches assume mechanical isotropy. However, white matter is known to be anisotropic from aligned, myelinated axonal bundles, which can lead to uncertainty in mechanical property estimates in these areas when using isotropic MRE. Recent advances in anisotropic MRE now allow for estimation of shear and tensile anisotropy, along with substrate shear modulus, in white matter tracts. The objective of this study was to investigate age-related differences in anisotropic mechanical properties in human brain white matter tracts for the first time. Anisotropic mechanical properties in all tracts were found to be significantly lower in older adults compared to young adults, with average property differences ranging between 0.028-0.107 for shear anisotropy and between 0.139-0.347 for tensile anisotropy. Stiffness perpendicular to the axonal fiber direction was also significantly lower in older age, but only in certain tracts. When compared with fractional anisotropy measures from diffusion tensor imaging, we found that anisotropic MRE measures provided additional, complementary information in describing differences between the white matter integrity of young and older populations. Anisotropic MRE provides a new tool for studying white matter structural integrity in aging and neurodegeneration.
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Wang S, Li T, Zhao B, Dai W, Yao Y, Li C, Li T, Zhu H, Zhang H. Identification and validation of supervariants reveal novel loci associated with human white matter microstructure. Genome Res 2024; 34:20-33. [PMID: 38190638 PMCID: PMC10904010 DOI: 10.1101/gr.277905.123] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2023] [Accepted: 12/05/2023] [Indexed: 01/10/2024]
Abstract
As an essential part of the central nervous system, white matter coordinates communications between different brain regions and is related to a wide range of neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have uncovered loci associated with white matter microstructure. However, GWASs suffer from limited reproducibility and difficulties in detecting multi-single-nucleotide polymorphism (multi-SNP) and epistatic effects. In this study, we adopt the concept of supervariants, a combination of alleles in multiple loci, to account for potential multi-SNP effects. We perform supervariant identification and validation to identify loci associated with 22 white matter fractional anisotropy phenotypes derived from diffusion tensor imaging. To increase reproducibility, we use United Kingdom (UK) Biobank White British (n = 30,842) data for discovery and internal validation, and UK Biobank White but non-British (n = 1927) data, Europeans from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (n = 4399) data, and Europeans from the Human Connectome Project (n = 319) data for external validation. We identify 23 novel loci on the discovery set that have not been reported in the previous GWASs on white matter microstructure. Among them, three supervariants on genomic regions 5q35.1, 8p21.2, and 19q13.32 have P-values lower than 0.05 in the meta-analysis of the three independent validation data sets. These supervariants contain genetic variants located in genes that have been related to brain structures, cognitive functions, and neuropsychiatric diseases. Our findings provide a better understanding of the genetic architecture underlying white matter microstructure.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shiying Wang
- Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA
| | - Ting Li
- Department of Applied Mathematics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
| | - Bingxin Zhao
- Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-1686, USA
| | - Wei Dai
- Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA
| | - Yisha Yao
- Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA
| | - Cai Li
- Department of Biostatistics, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee 38105, USA
| | - Tengfei Li
- Department of Radiology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
- Biomedical Research Imaging Center, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514, USA
| | - Hongtu Zhu
- Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, USA
| | - Heping Zhang
- Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA;
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Mamah D, Chen S, Shimony JS, Harms MP. Tract-based analyses of white matter in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, aging, and dementia using high spatial and directional resolution diffusion imaging: a pilot study. Front Psychiatry 2024; 15:1240502. [PMID: 38362028 PMCID: PMC10867155 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1240502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/15/2023] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024] Open
Abstract
Introduction Structural brain connectivity abnormalities have been associated with several psychiatric disorders. Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a chronic disabling disorder associated with accelerated aging and increased risk of dementia, though brain findings in the disorder have rarely been directly compared to those that occur with aging. Methods We used an automated approach to reconstruct key white matter tracts and assessed tract integrity in five participant groups. We acquired one-hour-long high-directional diffusion MRI data from young control (CON, n =28), bipolar disorder (BPD, n =21), and SCZ (n =22) participants aged 18-30, and healthy elderly (ELD, n =15) and dementia (DEM, n =9) participants. Volume, fractional (FA), radial diffusivity (RD) and axial diffusivity (AD) of seven key white matter tracts (anterior thalamic radiation, ATR; dorsal and ventral cingulum bundle, CBD and CBV; corticospinal tract, CST; and the three superior longitudinal fasciculi: SLF-1, SLF-2 and SLF-3) were analyzed with TRACULA. Group comparisons in tract metrics were performed using multivariate and univariate analyses. Clinical relationships of tract metrics with recent and chronic symptoms were assessed in SCZ and BPD participants. Results A MANOVA showed group differences in FA (λ=0.5; p=0.0002) and RD (λ=0.35; p<0.0001) across the seven tracts, but no significant differences in tract AD and volume. Post-hoc analyses indicated lower tract FA and higher RD in ELD and DEM groups compared to CON, BPD and SCZ groups. Lower FA and higher RD in SCZ compared to CON did not meet statistical significance. In SCZ participants, a significant negative correlation was found between chronic psychosis severity and FA in the SLF-1 (r= -0.45; p=0.035), SLF-2 (r= -0.49; p=0.02) and SLF-3 (r= -0.44; p=0.042). Discussion Our results indicate impaired white matter tract integrity in elderly populations consistent with myelin damage. Impaired tract integrity in SCZ is most prominent in patients with advanced illness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Mamah
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States
| | - ShingShiun Chen
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States
| | - Joshua S. Shimony
- Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States
| | - Michael P. Harms
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, United States
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Tian C, Ye Z, McCoy RG, Pan Y, Bi C, Gao S, Ma Y, Chen M, Yu J, Lu T, Hong LE, Kochunov P, Ma T, Chen S, Liu S. The causal effect of HbA1c on white matter brain aging by two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis. Front Neurosci 2024; 17:1335500. [PMID: 38274506 PMCID: PMC10808780 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1335500] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 12/28/2023] [Indexed: 01/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Background Poor glycemic control with elevated levels of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is associated with increased risk of cognitive impairment, with potentially varying effects between sexes. However, the causal impact of poor glycemic control on white matter brain aging in men and women is uncertain. Methods We used two nonoverlapping data sets from UK Biobank cohort: gene-outcome group (with neuroimaging data, (N = 15,193; males/females: 7,101/8,092)) and gene-exposure group (without neuroimaging data, (N = 279,011; males/females: 122,638/156,373)). HbA1c was considered the exposure and adjusted "brain age gap" (BAG) was calculated on fractional anisotropy (FA) obtained from brain imaging as the outcome, thereby representing the difference between predicted and chronological age. The causal effects of HbA1c on adjusted BAG were studied using the generalized inverse variance weighted (gen-IVW) and other sensitivity analysis methods, including Mendelian randomization (MR)-weighted median, MR-pleiotropy residual sum and outlier, MR-using mixture models, and leave-one-out analysis. Results We found that for every 6.75 mmol/mol increase in HbA1c, there was an increase of 0.49 (95% CI = 0.24, 0.74; p-value = 1.30 × 10-4) years in adjusted BAG. Subgroup analyses by sex and age revealed significant causal effects of HbA1c on adjusted BAG, specifically among men aged 60-73 (p-value = 2.37 × 10-8). Conclusion Poor glycemic control has a significant causal effect on brain aging, and is most pronounced among older men aged 60-73 years, which provides insights between glycemic control and the susceptibility to age-related neurodegenerative diseases.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cheng Tian
- Key Laboratory of Computing Power Network and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong Computer Science Center (National Supercomputer Center in Jinan), Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
- Shandong Engineering Research Center of Big Data Applied Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
- Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Computer Networks, Shandong Fundamental Research Center for Computer Science, Jinan, China
| | - Zhenyao Ye
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Rozalina G. McCoy
- Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, & Nutrition, Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
- University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing, Bethesda, MD, United States
| | - Yezhi Pan
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Chuan Bi
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Si Gao
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Yizhou Ma
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Mo Chen
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States
| | - Jiaao Yu
- Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
| | - Tong Lu
- Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
| | - L. Elliot Hong
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Peter Kochunov
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Tianzhou Ma
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, United States
| | - Shuo Chen
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, United States
| | - Song Liu
- Key Laboratory of Computing Power Network and Information Security, Ministry of Education, Shandong Computer Science Center (National Supercomputer Center in Jinan), Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
- Shandong Engineering Research Center of Big Data Applied Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, China
- Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Computer Networks, Shandong Fundamental Research Center for Computer Science, Jinan, China
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Jensen M, Hyder R, Westner BU, Højlund A, Shtyrov Y. Speech comprehension across time, space, frequency, and age: MEG-MVPA classification of intertrial phase coherence. Neuropsychologia 2023; 188:108602. [PMID: 37270028 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2023.108602] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/09/2022] [Revised: 04/24/2023] [Accepted: 05/31/2023] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Language is a key part of human cognition, essential for our well-being at all stages of our lives. Whereas many neurocognitive abilities decline with age, for language the picture is much less clear, and how exactly speech comprehension changes with ageing is still unknown. To investigate this, we employed magnetoencephalography (MEG) and recorded neuromagnetic brain responses to auditory linguistic stimuli in healthy participants of younger and older age using a passive task-free paradigm and a range of different linguistic stimulus contrasts, which enabled us to assess neural processing of spoken language at multiple levels (lexical, semantic, morphosyntactic). Using machine learning-based classification algorithms to scrutinise intertrial phase coherence of MEG responses in cortical source space, we found that patterns of oscillatory neural activity diverged between younger and older participants across several frequency bands (alpha, beta, gamma) for all tested linguistic information types. The results suggest multiple age-related changes in the brain's neurolinguistic circuits, which may be due to both healthy ageing in general and compensatory processes in particular.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mads Jensen
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; Research Unit for Robophilosophy and Integrative Social Robotics, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; Interacting Minds Centre, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
| | - Rasha Hyder
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
| | - Britta U Westner
- Radboud University, Donders Centre for Cognition, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
| | - Andreas Højlund
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Yury Shtyrov
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN), Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
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Mo C, Wang J, Ye Z, Ke H, Liu S, Hatch K, Gao S, Magidson J, Chen C, Mitchell BD, Kochunov P, Hong LE, Ma T, Chen S. Evaluating the causal effect of tobacco smoking on white matter brain aging: a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis in UK Biobank. Addiction 2023; 118:739-749. [PMID: 36401354 PMCID: PMC10443605 DOI: 10.1111/add.16088] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2022] [Accepted: 11/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND AND AIMS Tobacco smoking is a risk factor for impaired brain function, but its causal effect on white matter brain aging remains unclear. This study aimed to measure the causal effect of tobacco smoking on white matter brain aging. DESIGN Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis using two non-overlapping data sets (with and without neuroimaging data) from UK Biobank (UKB). The group exposed to smoking and control group consisted of current smokers and never smokers, respectively. Our main method was generalized weighted linear regression with other methods also included as sensitivity analysis. SETTING United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS The study cohort included 23 624 subjects [10 665 males and 12 959 females with a mean age of 54.18 years, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 54.08, 54.28]. MEASUREMENTS Genetic variants were selected as instrumental variables under the MR analysis assumptions: (1) associated with the exposure; (2) influenced outcome only via exposure; and (3) not associated with confounders. The exposure smoking status (current versus never smokers) was measured by questionnaires at the initial visit (2006-10). The other exposure, cigarettes per day (CPD), measured the average number of cigarettes smoked per day for current tobacco users over the life-time. The outcome was the 'brain age gap' (BAG), the difference between predicted brain age and chronological age, computed by training machine learning model on a non-overlapping set of never smokers. FINDINGS The estimated BAG had a mean of 0.10 (95% CI = 0.06, 0.14) years. The MR analysis showed evidence of positive causal effect of smoking behaviors on BAG: the effect of smoking is 0.21 (in years, 95% CI = 6.5 × 10-3 , 0.41; P-value = 0.04), and the effect of CPD is 0.16 year/cigarette (UKB: 95% CI = 0.06, 0.26; P-value = 1.3 × 10-3 ; GSCAN: 95% CI = 0.02, 0.31; P-value = 0.03). The sensitivity analyses showed consistent results. CONCLUSIONS There appears to be a significant causal effect of smoking on the brain age gap, which suggests that smoking prevention can be an effective intervention for accelerated brain aging and the age-related decline in cognitive function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chen Mo
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Jingtao Wang
- Department of Hematology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China
| | - Zhenyao Ye
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Hongjie Ke
- Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Song Liu
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Jinan, Shandong, China
| | - Kathryn Hatch
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Si Gao
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Jessica Magidson
- Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Chixiang Chen
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Braxton D. Mitchell
- Department of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Peter Kochunov
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - L. Elliot Hong
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
| | - Tianzhou Ma
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
| | - Shuo Chen
- Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
- Division of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
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Williams LN, Sharma A, Liao J. Structure and Mechanics of Native and Decellularized Porcine Cranial Dura Mater. ENGINEERED REGENERATION 2023. [DOI: 10.1016/j.engreg.2023.02.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/05/2023] Open
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Rogojin A, Gorbet DJ, Hawkins KM, Sergio LE. Differences in structural MRI and diffusion tensor imaging underlie visuomotor performance declines in older adults with an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. Front Aging Neurosci 2023; 14:1054516. [PMID: 36711200 PMCID: PMC9877535 DOI: 10.3389/fnagi.2022.1054516] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 12/26/2022] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Visuomotor impairments have been demonstrated in preclinical AD in individuals with a positive family history of dementia and APOE e4 carriers. Previous behavioral findings have also reported sex-differences in performance of visuomotor tasks involving a visual feedback reversal. The current study investigated the relationship between grey and white matter changes and non-standard visuomotor performance, as well as the effects of APOE status, family history of dementia, and sex on these brain-behavior relationships. Methods Older adults (n = 49) with no cognitive impairments completed non-standard visuomotor tasks involving a visual feedback reversal, plane-change, or combination of the two. Participants with a family history of dementia or who were APOE e4 carriers were considered at an increased risk for AD. T1-weighted anatomical scans were used to quantify grey matter volume and thickness, and diffusion tensor imaging measures were used to quantify white matter integrity. Results In APOE e4 carriers, grey and white matter structural measures were associated with visuomotor performance. Regression analyses showed that visuomotor deficits were predicted by lower grey matter thickness and volume in areas of the medial temporal lobe previously implicated in visuomotor control (entorhinal and parahippocampal cortices). This finding was replicated in the diffusion data, where regression analyses revealed that lower white matter integrity (lower FA, higher MD, higher RD, higher AxD) was a significant predictor of worse visuomotor performance in the forceps minor, forceps major, cingulum, inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), and uncinate fasciculus (UF). Some of these tracts overlap with those important for visuomotor integration, namely the forceps minor, forceps major, SLF, IFOF, and ILF. Conclusion These findings suggest that measuring the dysfunction of brain networks underlying visuomotor control in early-stage AD may provide a novel behavioral target for dementia risk detection that is easily accessible, non-invasive, and cost-effective. The results also provide insight into the structural differences in inferior parietal lobule that may underlie previously reported sex-differences in performance of the visual feedback reversal task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alica Rogojin
- School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada,Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada,Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) Program, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Diana J. Gorbet
- School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada,Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Kara M. Hawkins
- School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
| | - Lauren E. Sergio
- School of Kinesiology and Health Science, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada,Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada,*Correspondence: Lauren E. Sergio, ✉
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12
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Prasse G, Meyer HJ, Scherlach C, Maybaum J, Hoffmann A, Kasper J, Karl Fehrenbach M, Wilhelmy F, Meixensberger J, Hoffmann KT, Wende T. Preoperative language tract integrity is a limiting factor in recovery from aphasia after glioma surgery. Neuroimage Clin 2023; 37:103310. [PMID: 36586359 PMCID: PMC9817026 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103310] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/05/2022] [Revised: 12/20/2022] [Accepted: 12/27/2022] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
Aphasia can occur in a broad range of pathological conditions that affect cortical or subcortical structures. Here we test the hypothesis that white matter integrity of language pathways assessed by preoperative diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is associated with language performance and its recovery after glioma resection. 27 patients with preoperative DTI were included. Segmentation of the arcuate fascicle (AF), the inferior fronto-occipital fascicle (IFOF), the inferior longitudinal fascicle (ILF), the superior longitudinal fascicle (SLF), and the uncinate fascicle (UF) was performed with a fully-connected neural network (FCNN, TractSeg). Median fractional anisotropy (FA) was extracted from the resulting volumes as surrogate marker for white matter integrity and tested for correlation with clinical parameters. After correction for demographic data and multiple testing, preoperative white matter integrity of the IFOF, the ILF, and the UF in the left hemisphere were independently and significantly associated with aphasia three months after surgery. Comparison between patients with and without aphasia three months after surgery revealed significant differences in preoperative white matter integrity of the left AF (p = 0.021), left IFOF (p = 0.015), left ILF (p = 0.003), left SLF (p = 0.001, p = 0.021, p = 0.043 for respective sub-bundles 1-3), left UF (p = 0.041) and the right AF (p = 0.027). Preoperative assessment of white matter integrity of the language network by time-efficient MRI protocols and FCNN-driven segmentation may assist in the evaluation of postoperative rehabilitation potential in glioma patients.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gordian Prasse
- Institute of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany.
| | - Hans-Jonas Meyer
- Department of Radiology, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Cordula Scherlach
- Institute of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Jens Maybaum
- Institute of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Anastasia Hoffmann
- Institute of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Johannes Kasper
- Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Florian Wilhelmy
- Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | | | - Karl-Titus Hoffmann
- Institute of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
| | - Tim Wende
- Department of Neurosurgery, University Hospital Leipzig, 04103 Leipzig, Germany
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13
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Maffei C, Gilmore N, Snider SB, Foulkes AS, Bodien YG, Yendiki A, Edlow BL. Automated detection of axonal damage along white matter tracts in acute severe traumatic brain injury. Neuroimage Clin 2022; 37:103294. [PMID: 36529035 PMCID: PMC9792957 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2022.103294] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/14/2022] [Revised: 12/12/2022] [Accepted: 12/13/2022] [Indexed: 12/15/2022]
Abstract
New techniques for individualized assessment of white matter integrity are needed to detect traumatic axonal injury (TAI) and predict outcomes in critically ill patients with acute severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). Diffusion MRI tractography has the potential to quantify white matter microstructure in vivo and has been used to characterize tract-specific changes following TBI. However, tractography is not routinely used in the clinical setting to assess the extent of TAI, in part because focal lesions reduce the robustness of automated methods. Here, we propose a pipeline that combines automated tractography reconstructions of 40 white matter tracts with multivariate analysis of along-tract diffusion metrics to assess the presence of TAI in individual patients with acute severe TBI. We used the Mahalanobis distance to identify abnormal white matter tracts in each of 18 patients with acute severe TBI as compared to 33 healthy subjects. In all patients for which a FreeSurfer anatomical segmentation could be obtained (17 of 18 patients), including 13 with focal lesions, the automated pipeline successfully reconstructed a mean of 37.5 ± 2.1 white matter tracts without the need for manual intervention. A mean of 2.5 ± 2.1 tracts resulted in partial or failed reconstructions and needed to be reinitialized upon visual inspection. The pipeline detected at least one abnormal tract in all patients (mean: 9.1 ± 7.9) and accurately discriminated between patients and controls (AUC: 0.91). The number and neuroanatomic location of abnormal tracts varied across patients and levels of consciousness. The premotor, temporal, and parietal sections of the corpus callosum were the most commonly damaged tracts (in 10, 9, and 8 patients, respectively), consistent with prior histopathological studies of TAI. TAI measures were not associated with concurrent behavioral measures of consciousness. In summary, we provide proof-of-principle evidence that an automated tractography pipeline has translational potential to detect and quantify TAI in individual patients with acute severe TBI.
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Affiliation(s)
- Chiara Maffei
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA; Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Natalie Gilmore
- Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Samuel B Snider
- Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Andrea S Foulkes
- Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Yelena G Bodien
- Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA
| | - Anastasia Yendiki
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA
| | - Brian L Edlow
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA; Center for Neurotechnology and Neurorecovery, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
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14
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Tan B, Shishegar R, Oldham S, Fornito A, Poudel G, Georgiou-Karistianis N. Investigating longitudinal changes to frontal cortico-striatal tracts in Huntington's disease: the IMAGE-HD study. Brain Imaging Behav 2022; 16:2457-2466. [PMID: 35768755 PMCID: PMC9712302 DOI: 10.1007/s11682-022-00699-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/06/2022] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
The striatum is the principal site of disease pathology in Huntington's disease and contains neural connections to numerous cortical brain regions. Studies examining abnormalities to neural connections find that white matter integrity is compromised in HD; however, further regional, and longitudinal investigation is required. This paper is the first longitudinal investigation into region-based white-matter integrity changes in Huntington's Disease. The aim of this study was to better understand how disease progression impacts white matter tracts connecting the striatum to the prefrontal and motor cortical regions in HD. We used existing neuroimaging data from IMAGE-HD, comprised of 25 pre-symptomatic, 27 symptomatic, and 25 healthy controls at three separate time points (baseline, 18-months, 30-months). Fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity were derived as measures of white matter microstructure. The anatomical regions of interest were identified using the Desikan-Killiany brain atlas. A Group by Time repeated measures ANCOVA was conducted for each tract of interest and for each measure. We found significantly lower fractional anisotropy and significantly higher radial diffusivity in the symptomatic group, compared to both the pre-symptomatic group and controls (the latter two groups did not differ from each other), in the rostral middle frontal and superior frontal tracts; as well as significantly higher axial diffusivity in the rostral middle tracts only. We did not find a Group by Time interaction for any of the white matter integrity measures. These findings demonstrate that whilst the microstructure of white matter tracts, extending from the striatum to these regions of interest, are compromised during the symptomatic stages of Huntington's disease, 36-month follow-up did not show progressive changes in these measures. Additionally, no correlations were found between clinical measures and tractography changes, indicating further investigations into the relationship between tractography changes and clinical symptoms in Huntington's disease are required.
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Affiliation(s)
- Brendan Tan
- School of Psychological Sciences and The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
| | - Rosita Shishegar
- School of Psychological Sciences and The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
- The Australian E-Health Research Centre, CSIRO, Melbourne, Australia
- Monash Biomedical Imaging, 770 Blackburn Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
| | - Stuart Oldham
- Monash Biomedical Imaging, 770 Blackburn Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
- Developmental Imaging, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, 3052, Australia
| | - Alex Fornito
- School of Psychological Sciences and The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
- Monash Biomedical Imaging, 770 Blackburn Road, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
| | - Govinda Poudel
- School of Psychological Sciences and The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia
- Sydney Imaging, Brain and Mind Centre, the University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, 2050, Australia
- The Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000, Australia
| | - Nellie Georgiou-Karistianis
- School of Psychological Sciences and The Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, Monash University, Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Victoria, 3800, Australia.
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15
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Diffusion-weighted image analysis along the perivascular space (DWI-ALPS) for evaluating interstitial fluid status: age dependence in normal subjects. Jpn J Radiol 2022; 40:894-902. [PMID: 35474438 PMCID: PMC9441421 DOI: 10.1007/s11604-022-01275-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 13.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2022] [Accepted: 03/22/2022] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate the interstitial fluid status in a wide range of age groups using diffusion-weighted image analysis along the perivascular space (DWI-ALPS) method, which is a simplified variation of diffusion tensor image analysis along the perivascular space (DTI-ALPS). MATERIALS AND METHODS This retrospective study included data from 128 patients who underwent clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies, including DWI, and were found to have no abnormal findings in the brain on MRI. Three motion-probing gradients of the DWI were applied in an orthogonal direction to the imaging plane. Apparent diffusion coefficient images in the x-, y-, and z-axes were retrospectively generated, and composite color images were created to locate the projection and association fiber area on the slice including the body of the lateral ventricle. ALPS indices were calculated, and correlations with age were evaluated using linear and second-degree regression analysis. Linear regression analysis was also performed for a subgroup of patients older than 40 years. In addition, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) test among the generations was performed. RESULTS The linear regression analysis between age and the ALPS index showed a correlation coefficient of -0.20 for all age group and -0.51 for the subgroup older than 40 years. The second-degree regression analysis showed a correlation coefficient of 0.39. ANOVA showed that the 40's generation showed a statistically significant higher value of ALPS index compared to all other generations except for the 30's generation. While, the 70's generation showed a statistically significant lower value of the ALPS index compared to all other generations. CONCLUSIONS The analysis of the DWI-APLS method showed a correlation between age and the ALPS index in second-degree distribution which peaked in the 40's generation. This finding in normal subjects may be fundamental in the analysis of disease cases. We tried to evaluate the glymphatic system status in a wide range of age groups using diffusion-weighted image analysis along the perivascular space (DWI-ALPS) method, and the results showed a correlation between age and the ALPS index in second-degree distribution which peaked in the 40's generation.
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16
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Yang Q, Reutens DC, Vegh V. Generalisation of continuous time random walk to anomalous diffusion MRI models with an age-related evaluation of human corpus callosum. Neuroimage 2022; 250:118903. [PMID: 35033674 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.118903] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2021] [Revised: 12/07/2021] [Accepted: 01/10/2022] [Indexed: 12/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Diffusion MRI measures of the human brain provide key insight into microstructural variations across individuals and into the impact of central nervous system diseases and disorders. One approach to extract information from diffusion signals has been to use biologically relevant analytical models to link millimetre scale diffusion MRI measures with microscale influences. The other approach has been to represent diffusion as an anomalous transport process and infer microstructural information from the different anomalous diffusion equation parameters. In this study, we investigated how parameters of various anomalous diffusion models vary with age in the human brain white matter, particularly focusing on the corpus callosum. We first unified several established anomalous diffusion models (the super-diffusion, sub-diffusion, quasi-diffusion and fractional Bloch-Torrey models) under the continuous time random walk modelling framework. This unification allows a consistent parameter fitting strategy to be applied from which meaningful model parameter comparisons can be made. We then provided a novel way to derive the diffusional kurtosis imaging (DKI) model, which is shown to be a degree two approximation of the sub-diffusion model. This link between the DKI and sub-diffusion models led to a new robust technique for generating maps of kurtosis and diffusivity using the sub-diffusion parameters βSUB and DSUB. Superior tissue contrast is achieved in kurtosis maps based on the sub-diffusion model. 7T diffusion weighted MRI data for 65 healthy participants in the age range 19-78 years was used in this study. Results revealed that anomalous diffusion model parameters α and β have shown consistent positive correlation with age in the corpus callosum, indicating α and β are sensitive to tissue microstructural changes in ageing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qianqian Yang
- School of Mathematical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane 4000, Australia.
| | - David C Reutens
- Centre for Advanced Imaging, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia; ARC Training Centre for Innovation in Biomedical Imaging Technology, Brisbane 4072, Australia
| | - Viktor Vegh
- Centre for Advanced Imaging, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia; ARC Training Centre for Innovation in Biomedical Imaging Technology, Brisbane 4072, Australia
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17
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Lewis JD, O’Reilly C, Bock E, Theilmann RJ, Townsend J. Aging-Related Differences in Structural and Functional Interhemispheric Connectivity. Cereb Cortex 2022; 32:1379-1389. [PMID: 34496021 PMCID: PMC9190305 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhab275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2021] [Revised: 07/18/2021] [Accepted: 07/19/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
There is substantial evidence of age-related declines in anatomical connectivity during adulthood, with associated alterations in functional connectivity. But the relation of those functional alterations to the structural reductions is unclear. The complexities of both the structural and the functional connectomes make it difficult to determine such relationships. We pursue this question with methods, based on animal research, that specifically target the interhemispheric connections between the visual cortices. We collect t1- and diffusion-weighted imaging data from which we assess the integrity of the white matter interconnecting the bilateral visual cortices. Functional connectivity between the visual cortices is measured with electroencephalography during the presentation of drifting sinusoidal gratings that agree or conflict across hemifields. Our results show age-related reductions in the integrity of the white matter interconnecting the visual cortices, and age-related increases in the difference in functional interhemispheric lagged coherence between agreeing versus disagreeing visual stimuli. We show that integrity of the white matter in the splenium of the corpus callosum predicts the differences in lagged coherence for the agreeing versus disagreeing stimuli; and that this relationship is mediated by age. These results give new insight into the causal relationship between age and functional connectivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- John D Lewis
- McGill Centre for Integrative Neuroscience, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Christian O’Reilly
- Azrieli Centre for Autism Research, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Elizabeth Bock
- McConnell Brain Imaging Centre, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | | | - Jeanne Townsend
- Department of Neurosciences, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA
- Research on Aging and Development Laboratory, UC San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
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18
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Luttenbacher I, Phillips A, Kazemi R, Hadipour AL, Sanghvi I, Martinez J, Adamson MM. Transdiagnostic role of glutamate and white matter damage in neuropsychiatric disorders: A Systematic Review. J Psychiatr Res 2022; 147:324-348. [PMID: 35151030 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2021.12.042] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/21/2021] [Revised: 12/08/2021] [Accepted: 12/19/2021] [Indexed: 12/09/2022]
Abstract
Neuropsychiatric disorders including generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), major depressive disorder (MDD), bipolar disorder (BD), and schizophrenia (SZ) have been considered distinct categories of diseases despite their overlapping characteristics and symptomatology. We aimed to provide an in-depth review elucidating the role of glutamate/Glx and white matter (WM) abnormalities in these disorders from a transdiagnostic perspective. The PubMed online database was searched for studies published between 2010 and 2021. After careful screening, 401 studies were included. The findings point to decreased levels of glutamate in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex in both SZ and BD, whereas Glx is elevated in the Hippocampus in SZ and MDD. With regard to WM abnormalities, the Corpus Callosum and superior Longitudinal Fascicle were the most consistently identified brain regions showing decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) across all the reviewed disorders, except GAD. Additionally, the Uncinate Fasciculus displayed decreased FA in all disorders, except OCD. Decreased FA was also found in the inferior Longitudinal Fasciculus, inferior Fronto-Occipital Fasciculus, Thalamic Radiation, and Corona Radiata in SZ, BD, and MDD. Decreased FA in the Fornix and Corticospinal Tract were found in BD and SZ patients. The Cingulum and Anterior Limb of Internal Capsule exhibited decreased FA in MDD and SZ patients. The results suggest a gradual increase in severity from GAD to SZ defined by the number of brain regions with WM abnormality which may be partially caused by abnormal glutamate levels. WM damage could thus be considered a potential marker of some of the main neuropsychiatric disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ines Luttenbacher
- Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Rehabilitation Service, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA
| | - Angela Phillips
- Rehabilitation Service, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA; Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA
| | - Reza Kazemi
- Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute for Cognitive Science Studies, Tehran, Iran
| | - Abed L Hadipour
- Department of Cognitive Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy
| | - Isha Sanghvi
- Rehabilitation Service, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA; Department of Neuroscience, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Julian Martinez
- Rehabilitation Service, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA; Palo Alto University, Palo Alto, CA, USA
| | - Maheen M Adamson
- Rehabilitation Service, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA; Department of Neurosurgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA.
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19
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Badji A, de la Colina AN, Boshkovski T, Sabra D, Karakuzu A, Robitaille-Grou MC, Gros C, Joubert S, Bherer L, Lamarre-Cliche M, Stikov N, Gauthier CJ, Cohen-Adad J, Girouard H. A Cross-Sectional Study on the Impact of Arterial Stiffness on the Corpus Callosum, a Key White Matter Tract Implicated in Alzheimer's Disease. J Alzheimers Dis 2021; 77:591-605. [PMID: 32741837 DOI: 10.3233/jad-200668] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Vascular risk factors such as arterial stiffness play an important role in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), presumably due to the emergence of white matter lesions. However, the impact of arterial stiffness to white matter structure involved in the etiology of AD, including the corpus callosum remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVE The aims of the study are to better understand the relationship between arterial stiffness, white matter microstructure, and perfusion of the corpus callosum in older adults. METHODS Arterial stiffness was estimated using the gold standard measure of carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV). Cognitive performance was evaluated with the Trail Making Test part B-A. Neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging was used to obtain microstructural information such as neurite density and extracellular water diffusion. The cerebral blood flow was estimated using arterial spin labelling. RESULTS cfPWV better predicts the microstructural integrity of the corpus callosum when compared with other index of vascular aging (the augmentation index, the systolic blood pressure, and the pulse pressure). In particular, significant associations were found between the cfPWV, an alteration of the extracellular water diffusion, and a neuronal density increase in the body of the corpus callosum which was also correlated with the performance in cognitive flexibility. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that arterial stiffness is associated with an alteration of brain integrity which impacts cognitive function in older adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Atef Badji
- NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Department of Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Groupe de Recherche sur le Système Nerveux Central (GRSNC), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur le cerveau et l'apprentissage (CIRCA), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Adrián Noriega de la Colina
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Groupe de Recherche sur le Système Nerveux Central (GRSNC), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur le cerveau et l'apprentissage (CIRCA), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Tommy Boshkovski
- NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Dalia Sabra
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada.,PERFORM Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Agah Karakuzu
- NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | | | - Charley Gros
- NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Sven Joubert
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Louis Bherer
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Maxime Lamarre-Cliche
- Institut de Recherches Cliniques de Montréal, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Nikola Stikov
- NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Claudine J Gauthier
- Montreal Heart Institute, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Physics Department, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.,PERFORM Centre, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Julien Cohen-Adad
- NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Functional Neuroimaging Unit, Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
| | - Hélène Girouard
- Centre de recherche de l'Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), Montreal, QC, Canada.,Department of Pharmacology and Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Groupe de Recherche sur le Système Nerveux Central (GRSNC), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada.,Centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur le cerveau et l'apprentissage (CIRCA), Université de Montréal, Montreal, QC, Canada
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Henriques RN, Jespersen SN, Jones DK, Veraart J. Toward more robust and reproducible diffusion kurtosis imaging. Magn Reson Med 2021; 86:1600-1613. [PMID: 33829542 PMCID: PMC8199974 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.28730] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/12/2020] [Revised: 01/20/2021] [Accepted: 01/24/2021] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE The general utility of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) is challenged by its poor robustness to imaging artifacts and thermal noise that often lead to implausible kurtosis values. THEORY AND METHODS A robust scalar kurtosis index can be estimated from powder-averaged diffusion-weighted data. We introduce a novel DKI estimator that uses this scalar kurtosis index as a proxy for the mean kurtosis to regularize the fit. RESULTS The regularized DKI estimator improves the robustness and reproducibility of the kurtosis metrics and results in parameter maps with enhanced quality and contrast. CONCLUSION Our novel DKI estimator promotes the wider use of DKI in clinical research and potentially diagnostics by improving the reproducibility and precision of DKI fitting and, as such, enabling enhanced visual, quantitative, and statistical analyses of DKI parameters.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sune N. Jespersen
- Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience (CFIN) and MINDLabDepartment of Clinical MedicineAarhus UniversityAarhusDenmark
- Department of Physics and AstronomyAarhus UniversityAarhusDenmark
| | - Derek K. Jones
- CUBRICSchool of PsychologyCardiff UniversityCardiffUK
- Mary MacKillop Institute for Health ResearchAustralian Catholic UniversityMelbourneVictoriaAustralia
| | - Jelle Veraart
- Center for Biomedical ImagingNew York University Grossman School of MedicineNew YorkNYUSA
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21
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Henriques RN, Correia MM, Marrale M, Huber E, Kruper J, Koudoro S, Yeatman JD, Garyfallidis E, Rokem A. Diffusional Kurtosis Imaging in the Diffusion Imaging in Python Project. Front Hum Neurosci 2021; 15:675433. [PMID: 34349631 PMCID: PMC8327208 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2021.675433] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/03/2021] [Accepted: 06/17/2021] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) measurements and models provide information about brain connectivity and are sensitive to the physical properties of tissue microstructure. Diffusional Kurtosis Imaging (DKI) quantifies the degree of non-Gaussian diffusion in biological tissue from dMRI. These estimates are of interest because they were shown to be more sensitive to microstructural alterations in health and diseases than measures based on the total anisotropy of diffusion which are highly confounded by tissue dispersion and fiber crossings. In this work, we implemented DKI in the Diffusion in Python (DIPY) project-a large collaborative open-source project which aims to provide well-tested, well-documented and comprehensive implementation of different dMRI techniques. We demonstrate the functionality of our methods in numerical simulations with known ground truth parameters and in openly available datasets. A particular strength of our DKI implementations is that it pursues several extensions of the model that connect it explicitly with microstructural models and the reconstruction of 3D white matter fiber bundles (tractography). For instance, our implementations include DKI-based microstructural models that allow the estimation of biophysical parameters, such as axonal water fraction. Moreover, we illustrate how DKI provides more general characterization of non-Gaussian diffusion compatible with complex white matter fiber architectures and gray matter, and we include a novel mean kurtosis index that is invariant to the confounding effects due to tissue dispersion. In summary, DKI in DIPY provides a well-tested, well-documented and comprehensive reference implementation for DKI. It provides a platform for wider use of DKI in research on brain disorders and in cognitive neuroscience.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Marta M. Correia
- Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
| | - Maurizio Marrale
- Department of Physics and Chemistry “Emilio Segrè”, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy
- National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Catania Division, Catania, Italy
| | - Elizabeth Huber
- Department of Speech and Hearing, Institute for Learning and Brain Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
| | - John Kruper
- Department of Psychology and eScience Institute, The University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
| | - Serge Koudoro
- Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Luddy School of Informatics, Computer Science and Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States
| | - Jason D. Yeatman
- Department of Speech and Hearing, Institute for Learning and Brain Science, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
- Department of Pediatrics, Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States
| | - Eleftherios Garyfallidis
- Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Luddy School of Informatics, Computer Science and Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, United States
| | - Ariel Rokem
- Department of Psychology and eScience Institute, The University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States
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22
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Barry EF, Loftus JP, Luh WM, de Leon MJ, Niogi SN, Johnson PJ. Diffusion tensor-based analysis of white matter in the healthy aging canine brain. Neurobiol Aging 2021; 105:129-136. [PMID: 34062488 DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2021.04.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/16/2020] [Revised: 04/23/2021] [Accepted: 04/24/2021] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
White matter dysfunction and degeneration have been a topic of great interest in healthy and pathological aging. While ex vivo studies have investigated age-related changes in canines, little in vivo canine aging research exists. Quantitative diffusion MRI such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has demonstrated aging and neurodegenerative white matter changes in humans. However, this method has not been applied and adapted in vivo to canine populations. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that white matter diffusion changes frequently reported in human aging are also found in aged canines. The study used Tract Based Spatial Statistics (TBSS) and a region of interest (ROI) approach to investigate age related changes in fractional anisotropy (FA), mean diffusivity (MD), axial diffusivity (AxD) and radial diffusivity (RD). The results show that, compared to younger animals, aged canines have significant decreases in FA in parietal and temporal regions as well as the corpus callosum and fornix. Additionally, AxD decreases were observed in parietal, frontal, and midbrain regions. Similarly, an age- related increase in RD was observed in the right parietal lobe while MD decreases were found in the midbrain. These findings suggest that canine samples show commonalities with human brain aging as both exhibit similar white matter diffusion tensor changes with increasing age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Erica F Barry
- Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
| | - John P Loftus
- Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
| | - Wen-Ming Luh
- National Institute on Aging, Baltimore, Maryland
| | - Mony J de Leon
- Department of Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Sumit N Niogi
- Department of Radiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
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23
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Jolly AE, Bălăeţ M, Azor A, Friedland D, Sandrone S, Graham NSN, Zimmerman K, Sharp DJ. Detecting axonal injury in individual patients after traumatic brain injury. Brain 2021; 144:92-113. [PMID: 33257929 PMCID: PMC7880666 DOI: 10.1093/brain/awaa372] [Citation(s) in RCA: 51] [Impact Index Per Article: 17.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2020] [Revised: 05/11/2020] [Accepted: 08/17/2020] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
Poor outcomes after traumatic brain injury (TBI) are common yet remain difficult to predict. Diffuse axonal injury is important for outcomes, but its assessment remains limited in the clinical setting. Currently, axonal injury is diagnosed based on clinical presentation, visible damage to the white matter or via surrogate markers of axonal injury such as microbleeds. These do not accurately quantify axonal injury leading to misdiagnosis in a proportion of patients. Diffusion tensor imaging provides a quantitative measure of axonal injury in vivo, with fractional anisotropy often used as a proxy for white matter damage. Diffusion imaging has been widely used in TBI but is not routinely applied clinically. This is in part because robust analysis methods to diagnose axonal injury at the individual level have not yet been developed. Here, we present a pipeline for diffusion imaging analysis designed to accurately assess the presence of axonal injury in large white matter tracts in individuals. Average fractional anisotropy is calculated from tracts selected on the basis of high test-retest reliability, good anatomical coverage and their association to cognitive and clinical impairments after TBI. We test our pipeline for common methodological issues such as the impact of varying control sample sizes, focal lesions and age-related changes to demonstrate high specificity, sensitivity and test-retest reliability. We assess 92 patients with moderate-severe TBI in the chronic phase (≥6 months post-injury), 25 patients in the subacute phase (10 days to 6 weeks post-injury) with 6-month follow-up and a large control cohort (n = 103). Evidence of axonal injury is identified in 52% of chronic and 28% of subacute patients. Those classified with axonal injury had significantly poorer cognitive and functional outcomes than those without, a difference not seen for focal lesions or microbleeds. Almost a third of patients with unremarkable standard MRIs had evidence of axonal injury, whilst 40% of patients with visible microbleeds had no diffusion evidence of axonal injury. More diffusion abnormality was seen with greater time since injury, across individuals at various chronic injury times and within individuals between subacute and 6-month scans. We provide evidence that this pipeline can be used to diagnose axonal injury in individual patients at subacute and chronic time points, and that diffusion MRI provides a sensitive and complementary measure when compared to susceptibility weighted imaging, which measures diffuse vascular injury. Guidelines for the implementation of this pipeline in a clinical setting are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amy E Jolly
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK.,UK Dementia Research Institute Care Research and Technology Centre, Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, London, W12 0NN UK
| | - Maria Bălăeţ
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK
| | - Adriana Azor
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK
| | - Daniel Friedland
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK
| | - Stefano Sandrone
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK
| | - Neil S N Graham
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK
| | - Karl Zimmerman
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK
| | - David J Sharp
- Clinical, cognitive and computational neuroimaging laboratory (C3NL), Department of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, W12 0NN, UK.,UK Dementia Research Institute Care Research and Technology Centre, Imperial College London and the University of Surrey, London, W12 0NN UK
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24
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Transient changes in white matter microstructure during general anesthesia. PLoS One 2021; 16:e0247678. [PMID: 33770816 PMCID: PMC7997710 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/25/2020] [Accepted: 02/10/2021] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Cognitive dysfunction after surgery under general anesthesia is a well-recognized clinical phenomenon in the elderly. Physiological effects of various anesthetic agents have been studied at length. Very little is known about potential effects of anesthesia on brain structure. In this study we used Diffusion Tensor Imaging to compare the white matter microstructure of healthy control subjects under sevoflurane anesthesia with their awake state. Fractional Anisotropy, a white mater integrity index, transiently decreases throughout the brain during sevoflurane anesthesia and then returns back to baseline. Other DTI metrics such as mean diffusivity, axial diffusivity and radial diffusivity were increased under sevoflurane anesthesia. Although DTI metrics are age dependent, the transient changes due to sevoflurane were independent of age and sex. Volumetric analysis shows various white matter volumes decreased whereas some gray matter volumes increased during sevoflurane anesthesia. These results suggest that sevoflurane anesthesia has a significant, but transient, effect on white matter microstructure. In spite of the transient effects of sevoflurane anesthesia there were no measurable effects on brain white matter as determined by the DTI metrics at 2 days and 7 days following anesthesia. The role of white matter in the loss of consciousness under anesthesia will need to be studied and MRI studies with subjects under anesthesia will need to take these results into account.
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25
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Lama RK, Kwon GR. Diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease Using Brain Network. Front Neurosci 2021; 15:605115. [PMID: 33613178 PMCID: PMC7894198 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.605115] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2020] [Accepted: 01/06/2021] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent studies suggest the brain functional connectivity impairment is the early event occurred in case of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) as well as mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We model the brain as a graph based network to study these impairment. In this paper, we present a new diagnosis approach using graph theory based features from functional magnetic resonance (fMR) images to discriminate AD, MCI, and healthy control (HC) subjects using different classification techniques. These techniques include linear support vector machine (LSVM), and regularized extreme learning machine (RELM). We used pairwise Pearson’s correlation-based functional connectivity to construct the brain network. We compare the classification performance of brain network using Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging initiative (ADNI) datasets. Node2vec graph embedding approach is employed to convert graph features to feature vectors. Experimental results show that the SVM with LASSO feature selection method generates better classification accuracy compared to other classification technique.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ramesh Kumar Lama
- The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju, South Korea
| | - Goo-Rak Kwon
- The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Chosun University, Gwangju, South Korea
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26
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Xifra-Porxas A, Ghosh A, Mitsis GD, Boudrias MH. Estimating brain age from structural MRI and MEG data: Insights from dimensionality reduction techniques. Neuroimage 2021; 231:117822. [PMID: 33549751 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.117822] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/19/2020] [Revised: 01/27/2021] [Accepted: 01/30/2021] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Brain age prediction studies aim at reliably estimating the difference between the chronological age of an individual and their predicted age based on neuroimaging data, which has been proposed as an informative measure of disease and cognitive decline. As most previous studies relied exclusively on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data, we hereby investigate whether combining structural MRI with functional magnetoencephalography (MEG) information improves age prediction using a large cohort of healthy subjects (N = 613, age 18-88 years) from the Cam-CAN repository. To this end, we examined the performance of dimensionality reduction and multivariate associative techniques, namely Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA), to tackle the high dimensionality of neuroimaging data. Using MEG features (mean absolute error (MAE) of 9.60 years) yielded worse performance when compared to using MRI features (MAE of 5.33 years), but a stacking model combining both feature sets improved age prediction performance (MAE of 4.88 years). Furthermore, we found that PCA resulted in inferior performance, whereas CCA in conjunction with Gaussian process regression models yielded the best prediction performance. Notably, CCA allowed us to visualize the features that significantly contributed to brain age prediction. We found that MRI features from subcortical structures were more reliable age predictors than cortical features, and that spectral MEG measures were more reliable than connectivity metrics. Our results provide an insight into the underlying processes that are reflective of brain aging, yielding promise for the identification of reliable biomarkers of neurodegenerative diseases that emerge later during the lifespan.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alba Xifra-Porxas
- Graduate Program in Biological and Biomedical Engineering, McGill University, Montréal, Canada; Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR), Montréal, Canada
| | - Arna Ghosh
- Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR), Montréal, Canada; Integrated Program in Neuroscience, McGill University, Montréal, Canada
| | | | - Marie-Hélène Boudrias
- Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Rehabilitation of Greater Montreal (CRIR), Montréal, Canada; School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University, Montréal, Canada.
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27
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Impact of COMT val158met on tDCS-induced cognitive enhancement in older adults. Behav Brain Res 2021; 401:113081. [PMID: 33359367 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2020.113081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/30/2020] [Revised: 11/28/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Previous studies suggest that genetic polymorphisms and aging modulate inter-individual variability in brain stimulation-induced plasticity. However, the relationship between genetic polymorphisms and behavioral modulation through transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in older adults remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVE Link individual tDCS responsiveness, operationalized as performance difference between tDCS and sham condition, to common genetic polymorphisms in healthy older adults. METHODS 106 healthy older participants from five tDCS-studies were re-invited to donate blood for genotyping of apoliproprotein E (APOE: ε4 carriers and ε4 non-carriers), catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT: val/val, val/met, met/met), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF: val/val, val/met, met/met) and KIdney/BRAin encoding gene (KIBRA: C/C, C/T, T/T). Studies had assessed cognitive performance during tDCS and sham in cross-over designs. We now asked whether the tDCS responsiveness was related to the four genotypes using a linear regression models. RESULTS We found that tDCS responsiveness was significantly associated with COMT polymorphism; i.e., COMT val carriers (compared to met/met) showed higher tDCS responsiveness. No other significant associations emerged. CONCLUSION Using data from five brain stimulation studies conducted in our group, we showed that only individual variation of COMT genotypes modulated behavioral response to tDCS. These findings contribute to the understanding of inherent factors that explain inter-individual variability in functional tDCS effects in older adults, and might help to better stratify participants for future clinical trials.
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28
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Gil N, Lipton ML, Fleysher R. Registration quality filtering improves robustness of voxel-wise analyses to the choice of brain template. Neuroimage 2020; 227:117657. [PMID: 33338620 PMCID: PMC7880909 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117657] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2020] [Revised: 10/22/2020] [Accepted: 12/03/2020] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Motivation: Many clinical and scientific conclusions that rely on voxel-wise analyses of neuroimaging depend on the accurate comparison of corresponding anatomical regions. Such comparisons are made possible by registration of the images of subjects of interest onto a common brain template, such as the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) template. However, current image registration algorithms are prone to errors that are distributed in a template-dependent manner. Therefore, the results of voxel-wise analyses can be sensitive to template choice. Despite this problem, the issue of appropriate template choice for voxel-wise analyses is not generally addressed in contemporary neuroimaging studies, which may lead to the reporting of spurious results. Results: We present a novel approach to determine the suitability of a brain template for voxel-wise analysis. The approach is based on computing a “distance” between automatically-generated atlases of the subjects of interest and templates that is indicative of the extent of subject-to-template registration errors. This allows for the filtering of subjects and candidate templates based on a quantitative measure of registration quality. We benchmark our approach by evaluating alternative templates for a voxel-wise analysis that reproduces the well-known decline in fractional anisotropy (FA) with age. Our results show that filtering registrations minimizes errors and decreases the sensitivity of voxel-wise analysis to template choice. In addition to carrying important implications for future neuroimaging studies, the developed framework of template induction can be used to evaluate robustness of data analysis methods to template choice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nelson Gil
- Department of Systems and Computational Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA
| | - Michael L Lipton
- Department of Radiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA; Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA; Dominick P. Purpura Department of Neuroscience, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA
| | - Roman Fleysher
- Department of Radiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA; Gruss Magnetic Resonance Research Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY, USA.
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29
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Frontoparietal microstructural damage mediates age-dependent working memory decline in face and body information processing: Evidence for dichotomic hemispheric bias mechanisms. Neuropsychologia 2020; 151:107726. [PMID: 33321120 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107726] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2020] [Revised: 11/28/2020] [Accepted: 12/09/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Age-associated damage in the microstructure of frontally-based connections (e.g. genu of the corpus callosum and superior longitudinal fasciculus) is believed to lead to impairments in processing speed and executive function. Using mediation analysis, we tested the potential contribution of callosal and frontoparietal association tracts to age-dependent effects on cognition/executive function as measured with 1-back working memory tasks for visual stimulus categories (i.e. faces and non-emotional bodies) in a group of 55 healthy adults (age range 23-79 years). Constrained spherical deconvolution-based tractography was employed to reconstruct the genu/prefrontal section of the corpus callosum (GCC) and the central/second branch of the superior longitudinal fasciculus (CB-SLF). Age was associated with (i) reductions in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the GCC and in the right and left CB-SLF and (iii) decline in visual object category processing. Mediation analysis revealed that microstructural damage in right hemispheric CB-SLF is associated with age-dependent decline in face processing likely reflecting the stimulus-specific/holistic nature of face processing within dedicated/specialized frontoparietal routes. By contrast, microstructural damage in left hemispheric CB-SLF associated with age-dependent decline in non-emotional body processing, consistent with the more abstract nature of non-emotional body categories. In sum, our findings suggest that frontoparietal microstructural damage mediates age-dependent decline in face and body information processing in a manner that reflects the hemispheric bias of holistic vs. abstract nature of face and non-emotional body category processing.
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30
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De Tobel J, Bauwens J, Parmentier GIL, Franco A, Pauwels NS, Verstraete KL, Thevissen PW. Magnetic resonance imaging for forensic age estimation in living children and young adults: a systematic review. Pediatr Radiol 2020; 50:1691-1708. [PMID: 32734341 DOI: 10.1007/s00247-020-04709-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2019] [Revised: 03/03/2020] [Accepted: 05/10/2020] [Indexed: 12/20/2022]
Abstract
The use of MRI in forensic age estimation has been explored extensively during the last decade. The authors of this paper synthesized the available MRI data for forensic age estimation in living children and young adults to provide a comprehensive overview that can guide age estimation practice and future research. To do so, the authors searched MEDLINE, Embase and Web of Science, along with cited and citing articles and study registers. Two authors independently selected articles, conducted data extraction, and assessed risk of bias. They considered study populations including living subjects up to 30 years old. Fifty-five studies were included in qualitative analysis and 33 in quantitative analysis. Most studies had biases including use of relatively small European (Caucasian) populations, varying MR approaches and varying staging techniques. Therefore, it was not appropriate to pool the age distribution data. The authors found that reproducibility of staging was remarkably lower in clavicles than in any other anatomical structure. Age estimation performance was in line with the gold standard, radiography, with mean absolute errors ranging from 0.85 years to 2.0 years. The proportion of correctly classified minors ranged from 65% to 91%. Multifactorial age estimation performed better than that based on a single anatomical site. The authors found that more multifactorial age estimation studies are necessary, together with studies testing whether the MRI data can safely be pooled. The current review results can guide future studies, help medical professionals to decide on the preferred approach for specific cases, and help judicial professionals to interpret the evidential value of age estimation results.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jannick De Tobel
- Department of Diagnostic Sciences-Radiology, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium.
- Department of Imaging and Pathology-Forensic Odontology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
- Department of Oral Diseases and Maxillofacial Surgery, Maastricht UMC+, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
| | - Jeroen Bauwens
- Department of Diagnostic Sciences-Radiology, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Griet I L Parmentier
- Department of Diagnostic Sciences-Radiology, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Ademir Franco
- Department of Imaging and Pathology-Forensic Odontology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
| | - Nele S Pauwels
- Ghent Knowledge Centre for Health, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Koenraad L Verstraete
- Department of Diagnostic Sciences-Radiology, Ghent University, Corneel Heymanslaan 10, 9000, Ghent, Belgium
| | - Patrick W Thevissen
- Department of Imaging and Pathology-Forensic Odontology, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
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31
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Lockwood CT, Duffy CJ. Hyperexcitability in Aging Is Lost in Alzheimer's: What Is All the Excitement About? Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:5874-5884. [PMID: 32548625 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa163] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Neuronal hyperexcitability has emerged as a potential biomarker of late-onset early-stage Alzheimer's disease (LEAD). We hypothesize that the aging-related posterior cortical hyperexcitability anticipates the loss of excitability with the emergence of impairment in LEAD. To test this hypothesis, we compared the behavioral and neurophysiological responses of young and older (ON) normal adults, and LEAD patients during a visuospatial attentional control task. ONs show frontal cortical signal incoherence and posterior cortical hyper-responsiveness with preserved attentional control. LEADs lose the posterior hyper-responsiveness and fail in the attentional task. Our findings suggest that signal incoherence and cortical hyper-responsiveness in aging may contribute to the development of functional impairment in LEAD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin T Lockwood
- Departments of Neurology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester 14642, NY, USA
| | - Charles J Duffy
- Departments of Neurology and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester 14642, NY, USA
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32
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Boness CL, Korucuoglu O, Ellingson JM, Merrill AM, McDowell YE, Trela CJ, Sher KJ, Piasecki TM, Kerns JG. Twenty-first birthday drinking: Extreme-drinking episodes and white matter microstructural changes in the fornix and corpus callosum. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol 2020; 28:553-566. [PMID: 31789553 PMCID: PMC7263958 DOI: 10.1037/pha0000336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
The 21st birthday celebration is characterized by extreme alcohol consumption. Accumulating evidence suggests that high-dose bingeing is related to structural brain changes and cognitive deficits. This is particularly problematic in the transition from adolescence to adulthood when the brain is still maturing, elevating the brain's sensitivity to the acute effects of alcohol intoxication. Heavy drinking is associated with reduced structural integrity in the hippocampus and corpus callosum and is accompanied by cognitive deficits. However, there is little research examining changes in the human brain related to discrete heavy-drinking episodes. The present study investigated whether alcohol exposure during a 21st birthday celebration would result in changes to white matter microstructure by utilizing diffusion tensor imaging measures and a quasi-experimental design. By examining structural changes in the brain from pre- to postcelebration within subjects (N = 49) prospectively, we were able to more directly observe brain changes following an extreme-drinking episode. Region of interest analyses demonstrated increased fractional anisotropy in the posterior fornix (p < .0001) and in the body of the corpus callosum (p = .0029) from pre- to postbirthday celebration. These results suggest acute white matter damage to the fornix and corpus callosum following an extreme-drinking episode, which is especially problematic during continued neurodevelopment. Therefore, 21st birthday drinking may be considered an important target event for preventing acute brain injury in young adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Ozlem Korucuoglu
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine
| | | | | | | | | | - Kenneth J Sher
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri
| | | | - John G Kerns
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Missouri
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Henriques RN, Jespersen SN, Shemesh N. Correlation tensor magnetic resonance imaging. Neuroimage 2020; 211:116605. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116605] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/14/2019] [Revised: 01/23/2020] [Accepted: 02/02/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
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Kyriakopoulos M, Bargiotas T, Barker GJ, Frangou S. Diffusion tensor imaging in schizophrenia. Eur Psychiatry 2020; 23:255-73. [DOI: 10.1016/j.eurpsy.2007.12.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 103] [Impact Index Per Article: 25.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/30/2007] [Revised: 11/19/2007] [Accepted: 12/03/2007] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
AbstractDiffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a magnetic resonance imaging technique that is increasingly being used for the non-invasive evaluation of brain white matter abnormalities. In this review, we discuss the basic principles of DTI, its roots and the contribution of European centres in its development, and we review the findings from DTI studies in schizophrenia. We searched EMBASE, PubMed, PsychInfo, and Medline from February 1998 to December 2006 using as keywords ‘schizophrenia’, ‘diffusion’, ‘tensor’, and ‘DTI’. Forty studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria of this review were included and systematically reviewed. White matter abnormalities in many diverse brain regions were identified in schizophrenia. Although the findings are not completely consistent, frontal and temporal white matter seems to be more commonly affected. Limitations and future directions of this method are discussed.
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Diffusion tensor imaging of the corpus callosum in healthy aging: Investigating higher order polynomial regression modelling. Neuroimage 2020; 213:116675. [PMID: 32112960 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116675] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2019] [Revised: 02/19/2020] [Accepted: 02/20/2020] [Indexed: 12/21/2022] Open
Abstract
Previous diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies confirmed the vulnerability of corpus callosum (CC) fibers to aging. However, most studies employed lower order regressions to study the relationship between age and white matter microstructure. The present study investigated whether higher order polynomial regression modelling can better describe the relationship between age and CC DTI metrics compared to lower order models in 140 healthy participants (ages 18-85). The CC was found to be non-uniformly affected by aging, with accelerated and earlier degradation occurring in anterior portion; callosal volume, fiber count, fiber length, mean fibers per voxel, and FA decreased with age while mean, axial, and radial diffusivities increased. Half of the parameters studied also displayed significant age-sex interaction or intracranial volume effects. Higher order models were chosen as the best fit, based on Bayesian Information Criterion minimization, in 16 out of 23 significant cases when describing the relationship between DTI measurements and age. Higher order model fits provided different estimations of aging trajectory peaks and decline onsets than lower order models; however, a likelihood ratio test found that higher order regressions generally did not fit the data significantly better than lower order polynomial or linear models. The results contrast the modelling approaches and highlight the importance of using higher order polynomial regression modelling when investigating associations between age and CC white matter microstructure.
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Beer AL, Plank T, Greenlee MW. Aging and central vision loss: Relationship between the cortical macro-structure and micro-structure. Neuroimage 2020; 212:116670. [PMID: 32088318 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116670] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2019] [Revised: 02/13/2020] [Accepted: 02/17/2020] [Indexed: 12/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Aging and central vision loss are associated with cortical atrophies, but little is known about the relationship between cortical thinning and the underlying cellular structure. We compared the macro- and micro-structure of the cortical gray and superficial white matter of 38 patients with juvenile (JMD) or age-related (AMD) macular degeneration and 38 healthy humans (19-84 years) by multimodal MRI including diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI). A factor analysis showed that cortical thickness, tissue-dependent measures, and DTI-based measures were sensitive to distinct components of brain structure. Age-related cortical thinning and increased diffusion were observed across most of the cortex, but increased T1-weighted intensities (frontal), reduced T2-weighted intensities (occipital), and reduced anisotropy (medial) were limited to confined cortical regions. Vision loss was associated with cortical thinning and enhanced diffusion in the gray matter (less in the white matter) of the occipital central visual field representation. Moreover, AMD (but not JMD) patients showed enhanced diffusion in lateral occipito-temporal cortex and cortical thinning in the posterior cingulum. These findings demonstrate that changes in brain structure are best quantified by multimodal imaging. They further suggest that age-related brain atrophies (cortical thinning) reflect diverse micro-structural etiologies. Moreover, juvenile and age-related macular degeneration are associated with distinct patterns of micro-structural alterations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anton L Beer
- Institut für Psychologie, Universität Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.
| | - Tina Plank
- Institut für Psychologie, Universität Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
| | - Mark W Greenlee
- Institut für Psychologie, Universität Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany
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Zhang M, Desrosiers C, Guo Y, Khundrakpam B, Al-Sharif N, Kiar G, Valdes-Sosa P, Poline JB, Evans A. Brain status modeling with non-negative projective dictionary learning. Neuroimage 2020; 206:116226. [PMID: 31593792 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116226] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2019] [Revised: 09/01/2019] [Accepted: 09/24/2019] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
Accurate prediction of individuals' brain age is critical to establish a baseline for normal brain development. This study proposes to model brain development with a novel non-negative projective dictionary learning (NPDL) approach, which learns a discriminative representation of multi-modal neuroimaging data for predicting brain age. Our approach encodes the variability of subjects in different age groups using separate dictionaries, projecting features into a low-dimensional manifold such that information is preserved only for the corresponding age group. The proposed framework improves upon previous discriminative dictionary learning methods by incorporating orthogonality and non-negativity constraints, which remove representation redundancy and perform implicit feature selection. We study brain development on multi-modal brain imaging data from the PING dataset (N = 841, age = 3-21 years). The proposed analysis uses our NDPL framework to predict the age of subjects based on cortical measures from T1-weighted MRI and connectome from diffusion weighted imaging (DWI). We also investigate the association between age prediction and cognition, and study the influence of gender on prediction accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate the usefulness of NDPL for modeling brain development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingli Zhang
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 2B4, Canada.
| | - Christian Desrosiers
- Department of Software and IT Engineering, École de Technologie supérieure (ETS), Montreal, H3C 1K3, Canada
| | - Yuhong Guo
- School of Computer Science, Carleton University, Canada
| | | | - Noor Al-Sharif
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Greg Kiar
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 2B4, Canada
| | - Pedro Valdes-Sosa
- University of Electronic Science and Technology of China/ Cuban Neuroscience Center, China
| | | | - Alan Evans
- Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, Montreal, H3A 2B4, Canada
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Fuhrmann D, Simpson-Kent IL, Bathelt J, Kievit RA. A Hierarchical Watershed Model of Fluid Intelligence in Childhood and Adolescence. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:339-352. [PMID: 31211362 PMCID: PMC7029679 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 18] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/12/2018] [Revised: 03/18/2019] [Accepted: 04/04/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Fluid intelligence is the capacity to solve novel problems in the absence of task-specific knowledge and is highly predictive of outcomes like educational attainment and psychopathology. Here, we modeled the neurocognitive architecture of fluid intelligence in two cohorts: the Centre for Attention, Leaning and Memory sample (CALM) (N = 551, aged 5-17 years) and the Enhanced Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample (NKI-RS) (N = 335, aged 6-17 years). We used multivariate structural equation modeling to test a preregistered watershed model of fluid intelligence. This model predicts that white matter contributes to intermediate cognitive phenotypes, like working memory and processing speed, which, in turn, contribute to fluid intelligence. We found that this model performed well for both samples and explained large amounts of variance in fluid intelligence (R2CALM = 51.2%, R2NKI-RS = 78.3%). The relationship between cognitive abilities and white matter differed with age, showing a dip in strength around ages 7-12 years. This age effect may reflect a reorganization of the neurocognitive architecture around pre- and early puberty. Overall, these findings highlight that intelligence is part of a complex hierarchical system of partially independent effects.
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Affiliation(s)
- Delia Fuhrmann
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Ivan L Simpson-Kent
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Joe Bathelt
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
| | - Rogier A Kievit
- MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
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Linking the impact of aging on visual short-term memory capacity with changes in the structural connectivity of posterior thalamus to occipital cortices. Neuroimage 2019; 208:116440. [PMID: 31841682 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116440] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2019] [Revised: 11/25/2019] [Accepted: 12/03/2019] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Aging impacts both visual short-term memory (vSTM) capacity and thalamo-cortical connectivity. According to the Neural Theory of Visual Attention, vSTM depends on the structural connectivity between posterior thalamus and visual occipital cortices (PT-OC). We tested whether aging modifies the association between vSTM capacity and PT-OC structural connectivity. To do so, 66 individuals aged 20-77 years were assessed by diffusion-weighted imaging used for probabilistic tractography and performed a psychophysical whole-report task of briefly presented letter arrays, from which vSTM capacity estimates were derived. We found reduced vSTM capacity, and aberrant PT-OC connection probability in aging. Critically, age modified the relationship between vSTM capacity and PT-OC connection probability: in younger adults, vSTM capacity was negatively correlated with PT-OC connection probability while in older adults, this association was positive. Furthermore, age modified the microstructure of PT-OC tracts suggesting that the inversion of the association between PT-OC connection probability and vSTM capacity with aging might reflect age-related changes in white-matter properties. Accordingly, our results demonstrate that age-related differences in vSTM capacity links with the microstructure and connectivity of PT-OC tracts.
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40
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Toschi N, Gisbert RA, Passamonti L, Canals S, De Santis S. Multishell diffusion imaging reveals sex-specific trajectories of early white matter degeneration in normal aging. Neurobiol Aging 2019; 86:191-200. [PMID: 31902522 DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.11.014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2019] [Revised: 10/08/2019] [Accepted: 11/21/2019] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
During aging, human white matter (WM) is subject to dynamic structural changes which have a deep impact on healthy and pathological evolution of the brain through the lifespan; characterizing this pattern is of key importance for understanding brain development, maturation, and aging as well as for studying its pathological alterations. Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide a quantitative assessment of the white-matter microstructural organization that characterizes these trajectories. Here, we use both conventional and advanced diffusion MRI in a cohort of 91 individuals (age range: 13-62 years) to study region- and sex-specific features of WM microstructural integrity in healthy aging. We focus on the age at which microstructural imaging parameters invert their development trend as the time point which marks the onset of microstructural decline in WM. Importantly, our results indicate that age-related brain changes begin earlier in males than females and affect more frontal regions-in accordance with evolutionary theories and numerous evidences across non-MRI domains. Advanced diffusion MRI reveals age-related WM modification patterns which cannot be detected using conventional diffusion tensor imaging.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nicola Toschi
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
| | | | - Luca Passamonti
- Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK; Istituto di Bioimmagini e Fisiologia Molecolare (IBFM), Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR), Segrate, Milano, Italia
| | - Santiago Canals
- Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante (CSIC-UMH), San Juan de Alicante, Spain
| | - Silvia De Santis
- Instituto de Neurociencias de Alicante (CSIC-UMH), San Juan de Alicante, Spain; Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
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41
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Kim HH, Chung GH, Park SH, Kim SJ. Language-Related White-Matter-Tract Deficits in Children with Benign Epilepsy with Centrotemporal Spikes: A Retrospective Study. J Clin Neurol 2019; 15:502-510. [PMID: 31591839 PMCID: PMC6785461 DOI: 10.3988/jcn.2019.15.4.502] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/27/2018] [Revised: 04/30/2019] [Accepted: 04/30/2019] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Background and Purpose Benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) is one of the most common pediatric epilepsies, and it generally has a good prognosis. However, recent research has indicated that the epileptic activity of BECTS can cause cognitive defects such as language, visuospatial, and auditory verbal memory deficits. This study assessed language-delivery deficits in BECTS patients using diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI). Methods T1-weighted MRI, DTI, and language tests were conducted in 16 BECTS patients and 16 age-matched controls. DTI data were analyzed using the TRActs Constrained by Underlying Anatomy tool in FreeSurfer 5.3, and 18 major white-matter tracts were extracted, which included 4 language-related tracts: the inferior longitudinal fasciculus, superior longitudinal fasciculus-parietal terminations, superior longitudinal fasciculus-temporal terminations, and uncinate fasciculus (UNC). Language tests included the Korean version of the Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test, Test of Problem-Solving Abilities (TOPS), and the mean length of utterance in words. Results The BECTS group exhibited decreased mean fractional anisotropy and increased mean radial diffusivity, with significant differences in both the superior longitudinal fasciculus and the left UNC (p<0.05), which are the language-related white-matter tracts in the dual-loop model. The TOPS language test scores were significantly lower in the BECTS group than in the control group (p<0.05). Conclusions It appears that BECTS patients can exhibit language deficits. Seizure activities of BECTS could alter DTI scalar values in the language-related white-matter tracts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hyun Ho Kim
- Department of Pediatrics, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea
| | - Gyung Ho Chung
- Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Jeonju, Korea
| | - Sung Hee Park
- Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Jeonju, Korea
| | - Sun Jun Kim
- Department of Pediatrics, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Jeonju, Korea.,Research Institute of Clinical Medicine of Chonbuk National University, Jeonju, Korea.,Biomedical Research Institute of Chonbuk National University Hospital, Chonbuk National University Medical School, Jeonju, Korea.
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The effect of spatial resolution on the reproducibility of diffusion imaging when controlled signal to noise ratio. Biomed J 2019; 42:268-276. [PMID: 31627869 PMCID: PMC6818162 DOI: 10.1016/j.bj.2019.03.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/14/2018] [Revised: 02/26/2019] [Accepted: 03/11/2019] [Indexed: 12/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Background The purpose of the study is to evaluate the reproducibility and repeatability of the compartmental diffusion measurement. Methods Two identical whipping cream phantoms and two healthy Sprague–Dawley rats were scanned on a 7T MR scanner, each repeated for three times. Diffusion weighted images were acquired along 30 non-collinear gradient directions, each with four b-values of 750, 1500, 2250 and 3000 s/mm2. Slice thickness and field of view were used to create different combinations of voxel sizes, varied between 1.210 and 2.366 mm3 in phantom and 0.200–0.303 mm3 in rat brains. Multiple averages were used to achieve a controlled signal to noise ratio. Results Diffusion imaging showed good stability throughout the range of voxel sizes acquired from either the cream phantom or the rat, when the signal to noise ratio is controlled. The reproducibility analysis showed the within-subject coefficient of variation varied between 0.88% and 6.99% for phantom and 0.69%–6.19% for rat. Diffusion imaging is stable among different voxel sizes in 3 aspects: A. from both compartments in phantom and in the rat; B. in measurement of diffusivity and kurtosis and C. along axial, radial and averaged in all directions. Conclusion Diffusion imaging in a heterogeneous but isotropic phantom and in vivo is consistent within the range of spatial resolution in preclinical use and when the signal to noise ratio is fixed. The result is reproducible for repeated measurements.
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Qiu T, Zhang Y, Tang X, Liu X, Wang Y, Zhou C, Luo C, Zhang J. Precentral degeneration and cerebellar compensation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: A multimodal MRI analysis. Hum Brain Mapp 2019; 40:3464-3474. [PMID: 31020731 PMCID: PMC6865414 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.24609] [Citation(s) in RCA: 30] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2019] [Revised: 03/28/2019] [Accepted: 04/16/2019] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive and intractable neurodegenerative disease of human motor system characterized by progressive muscular weakness and atrophy. A considerable body of research has demonstrated significant structural and functional abnormalities of the primary motor cortex in patients with ALS. In contrast, much less attention has been paid to the abnormalities of cerebellum in this disease. Using multimodal magnetic resonance imagining data of 60 patients with ALS and 60 healthy controls, we examined changes in gray matter volume (GMV), white matter (WM) fractional anisotropy (FA), and functional connectivity (FC) in patients with ALS. Compared with healthy controls, patients with ALS showed decreased GMV in the left precentral gyrus and increased GMV in bilateral cerebellum, decreased FA in the left corticospinal tract and body of corpus callosum, and decreased FC in multiple brain regions, involving bilateral postcentral gyrus, precentral gyrus and cerebellum anterior lobe, among others. Meanwhile, we found significant intermodal correlations among GMV of left precentral gyrus, FA of altered WM tracts, and FC of left precentral gyrus, and that WM microstructural alterations seem to play important roles in mediating the relationship between GMV and FC of the precentral gyrus, as well as the relationship between GMVs of the precentral gyrus and cerebellum. These findings provided evidence for the precentral degeneration and cerebellar compensation in ALS, and the involvement of WM alterations in mediating the relationship between pathologies of the primary motor cortex and cerebellum, which may contribute to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of ALS.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ting Qiu
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and TechnologyUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengduPeople's Republic of China
| | - Yuanchao Zhang
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and TechnologyUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengduPeople's Republic of China
| | - Xie Tang
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and TechnologyUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengduPeople's Republic of China
| | - Xiaoping Liu
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and TechnologyUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengduPeople's Republic of China
| | - Yue Wang
- Key Laboratory for NeuroInformation of Ministry of Education, School of Life Science and TechnologyUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of ChinaChengduPeople's Republic of China
| | - Chaoyang Zhou
- Department of RadiologySouthwest Hospital, Third Military Medical UniversityChongqingPeople's Republic of China
| | - Chunxia Luo
- Department of NeurologySouthwest Hospital, Third Military Medical UniversityChongqingPeople's Republic of China
| | - Jiuquan Zhang
- Department of RadiologyChongqing University Cancer Hospital & Chongqing Cancer Institute & Chongqing Cancer HospitalChongqingPeople's Republic of China
- Key Laboratory for Biorheological Science and Technology of Ministry of Education (Chongqing University)Chongqing University Cancer Hospital & Chongqing Cancer Institute & Chongqing Cancer HospitalChongqingPeople's Republic of China
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Slater DA, Melie‐Garcia L, Preisig M, Kherif F, Lutti A, Draganski B. Evolution of white matter tract microstructure across the life span. Hum Brain Mapp 2019; 40:2252-2268. [PMID: 30673158 PMCID: PMC6865588 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.24522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 75] [Impact Index Per Article: 15.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/05/2018] [Revised: 12/28/2018] [Accepted: 01/02/2019] [Indexed: 01/13/2023] Open
Abstract
The human brain undergoes dramatic structural change over the life span. In a large imaging cohort of 801 individuals aged 7-84 years, we applied quantitative relaxometry and diffusion microstructure imaging in combination with diffusion tractography to investigate tissue property dynamics across the human life span. Significant nonlinear aging effects were consistently observed across tracts and tissue measures. The age at which white matter (WM) fascicles attain peak maturation varies substantially across tissue measurements and tracts. These observations of heterochronicity and spatial heterogeneity of tract maturation highlight the importance of using multiple tissue measurements to investigate each region of the WM. Our data further provide additional quantitative evidence in support of the last-in-first-out retrogenesis hypothesis of aging, demonstrating a strong correlational relationship between peak maturational timing and the extent of quadratic measurement differences across the life span for the most myelin sensitive measures. These findings present an important baseline from which to assess divergence from normative aging trends in developmental and degenerative disorders, and to further investigate the mechanisms connecting WM microstructure to cognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- David A. Slater
- Laboratory of Research in Neuroimaging (LREN) – Department of Clinical Neurosciences – CHUVUniversity of LausanneLausanneSwitzerland
| | - Lester Melie‐Garcia
- Laboratory of Research in Neuroimaging (LREN) – Department of Clinical Neurosciences – CHUVUniversity of LausanneLausanneSwitzerland
| | - Martin Preisig
- Department of Psychiatry – CHUVUniversity of LausanneLausanneSwitzerland
| | - Ferath Kherif
- Laboratory of Research in Neuroimaging (LREN) – Department of Clinical Neurosciences – CHUVUniversity of LausanneLausanneSwitzerland
| | - Antoine Lutti
- Laboratory of Research in Neuroimaging (LREN) – Department of Clinical Neurosciences – CHUVUniversity of LausanneLausanneSwitzerland
| | - Bogdan Draganski
- Laboratory of Research in Neuroimaging (LREN) – Department of Clinical Neurosciences – CHUVUniversity of LausanneLausanneSwitzerland
- Department of Clinical NeurosciencesMax‐Planck‐Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzigGermany
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Nobukawa S, Kikuchi M, Takahashi T. Changes in functional connectivity dynamics with aging: A dynamical phase synchronization approach. Neuroimage 2019; 188:357-368. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 39] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2018] [Revised: 10/15/2018] [Accepted: 12/04/2018] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
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Jacobucci R, Brandmaier AM, Kievit RA. A Practical Guide to Variable Selection in Structural Equation Models with Regularized MIMIC Models. ADVANCES IN METHODS AND PRACTICES IN PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE 2019; 2:55-76. [PMID: 31463424 PMCID: PMC6713564 DOI: 10.1177/2515245919826527] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2022]
Abstract
Methodological innovations have allowed researchers to consider increasingly sophisticated statistical models that are better in line with the complexities of real world behavioral data. However, despite these powerful new analytic approaches, sample sizes may not always be sufficiently large to deal with the increase in model complexity. This poses a difficult modeling scenario that entails large models with a comparably limited number of observations given the number of parameters. We here describe a particular strategy to overcoming this challenge, called regularization. Regularization, a method to penalize model complexity during estimation, has proven a viable option for estimating parameters in this small n, large p setting, but has so far mostly been used in linear regression models. Here we show how to integrate regularization within structural equation models, a popular analytic approach in psychology. We first describe the rationale behind regularization in regression contexts, and how it can be extended to regularized structural equation modeling (Jacobucci, Grimm, & McArdle, 2016). Our approach is evaluated through the use of a simulation study, showing that regularized SEM outperforms traditional SEM estimation methods in situations with a large number of predictors and small sample size. We illustrate the power of this approach in two empirical examples: modeling the neural determinants of visual short term memory, as well as identifying demographic correlates of stress, anxiety and depression. We illustrate the performance of the method and discuss practical aspects of modeling empirical data, and provide a step-by-step online tutorial.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Andreas M Brandmaier
- Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research Berlin, Germany / London, UK
| | - Rogier A Kievit
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research Berlin, Germany / London, UK
- Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge, UK
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47
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Neurochemical changes in the aging brain: A systematic review. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2019; 98:306-319. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.01.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 56] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/16/2018] [Revised: 11/23/2018] [Accepted: 01/04/2019] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
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Fan Q, Tian Q, Ohringer NA, Nummenmaa A, Witzel T, Tobyne SM, Klawiter EC, Mekkaoui C, Rosen BR, Wald LL, Salat DH, Huang SY. Age-related alterations in axonal microstructure in the corpus callosum measured by high-gradient diffusion MRI. Neuroimage 2019; 191:325-336. [PMID: 30790671 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.02.036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 44] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/22/2018] [Revised: 01/26/2019] [Accepted: 02/14/2019] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Cerebral white matter exhibits age-related degenerative changes during the course of normal aging, including decreases in axon density and alterations in axonal structure. Noninvasive approaches to measure these microstructural alterations throughout the lifespan would be invaluable for understanding the substrate and regional variability of age-related white matter degeneration. Recent advances in diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have leveraged high gradient strengths to increase sensitivity toward axonal size and density in the living human brain. Here, we examined the relationship between age and indices of axon diameter and packing density using high-gradient strength diffusion MRI in 36 healthy adults (aged 22-72) in well-defined central white matter tracts in the brain. A recently validated method for inferring the effective axonal compartment size and packing density from diffusion MRI measurements acquired with 300 mT/m maximum gradient strength was applied to the in vivo human brain to obtain indices of axon diameter and density in the corpus callosum, its sub-regions, and adjacent anterior and posterior fibers in the forceps minor and forceps major. The relationships between the axonal metrics, corpus callosum area and regional gray matter volume were also explored. Results revealed a significant increase in axon diameter index with advancing age in the whole corpus callosum. Similar analyses in sub-regions of the corpus callosum showed that age-related alterations in axon diameter index and axon density were most pronounced in the genu of the corpus callosum and relatively absent in the splenium, in keeping with findings from previous histological studies. The significance of these correlations was mirrored in the forceps minor and forceps major, consistent with previously reported decreases in FA in the forceps minor but not in the forceps major with age. Alterations in the axonal imaging metrics paralleled decreases in corpus callosum area and regional gray matter volume with age. Among older adults, results from cognitive testing suggested an association between larger effective compartment size in the corpus callosum, particularly within the genu of the corpus callosum, and lower scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, largely driven by deficits in short-term memory. The current study suggests that high-gradient diffusion MRI may be sensitive to the axonal substrate of age-related white matter degeneration reflected in traditional DTI metrics and provides further evidence for regionally selective alterations in white matter microstructure with advancing age.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiuyun Fan
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
| | - Qiyuan Tian
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Ned A Ohringer
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Aapo Nummenmaa
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Thomas Witzel
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Sean M Tobyne
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Eric C Klawiter
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Choukri Mekkaoui
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Bruce R Rosen
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Lawrence L Wald
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - David H Salat
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
| | - Susie Y Huang
- Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, USA; Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
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Guerreri M, Palombo M, Caporale A, Fasano F, Macaluso E, Bozzali M, Capuani S. Age-related microstructural and physiological changes in normal brain measured by MRI γ-metrics derived from anomalous diffusion signal representation. Neuroimage 2018; 188:654-667. [PMID: 30583064 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.12.044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2018] [Revised: 12/11/2018] [Accepted: 12/20/2018] [Indexed: 12/29/2022] Open
Abstract
Nowadays, increasing longevity associated with declining cerebral nervous system functions, suggests the need for continued development of new imaging contrast mechanisms to support the differential diagnosis of age-related decline. In our previous papers, we developed a new imaging contrast metrics derived from anomalous diffusion signal representation and obtained from diffusion-weighted (DW) data collected by varying diffusion gradient strengths. Recently, we highlighted that the new metrics, named γ-metrics, depended on the local inhomogeneity due to differences in magnetic susceptibility between tissues and diffusion compartments in young healthy subjects, thus providing information about myelin orientation and iron content within cerebral regions. The major structural modifications occurring in brain aging are myelinated fibers damage in nerve fibers and iron accumulation in gray matter nuclei. Therefore, we investigated the potential of γ-metrics in relation to other conventional diffusion metrics such as DTI, DKI and NODDI in detecting age-related structural changes in white matter (WM) and subcortical gray matter (scGM). DW-images were acquired in 32 healthy subjects, adults and elderly (age range 20-77 years) using 3.0T and 12 b-values up to 5000 s/mm2. Association between diffusion metrics and subjects' age was assessed using linear regression. A decline in mean γ (Mγ) in the scGM and a complementary increase in radial γ (γ⊥) in frontal WM, genu of corpus callosum and anterior corona radiata with advancing age were found. We suggested that the increase in γ⊥ might reflect declined myelin density, and Mγ decrease might mirror iron accumulation. An increase in D// and a decrease in the orientation dispersion index (ODI) were associated with axonal loss in the pyramidal tracts, while their inverted trends within the thalamus were thought to be linked to reduced architectural complexity of nerve fibers. γ-metrics together with conventional diffusion-metrics can more comprehensively characterize the complex mechanisms underlining age-related changes than conventional diffusion techniques alone.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michele Guerreri
- SAIMLAL Department, Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro, 5, 00185, Roma, RM, Italy; Institute for Complex Systems, CNR, Rome, Italy.
| | - Marco Palombo
- Institute for Complex Systems, CNR, Rome, Italy; Department of Computer Science & Centre for Medical Image Computing, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Alessandra Caporale
- Institute for Complex Systems, CNR, Rome, Italy; Laboratory for Structural, Physiologic and Functional Imaging, Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | | | | | - Marco Bozzali
- Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy
| | - Silvia Capuani
- Institute for Complex Systems, CNR, Rome, Italy; Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Rome, Italy
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Attia H, Taha M, Abdellatif A. Effects of aging on the myelination of the optic nerve in rats. Int J Neurosci 2018; 129:320-324. [PMID: 30260726 DOI: 10.1080/00207454.2018.1529670] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
Abstract
AIM OF THE STUDY Cognitive decline due to aging is most probably the result of changes in the white matter in the central nervous system (CNS) and/or demyelination. MATERIAL AND METHODS We used electron microscopic analysis of the morphological changes in aging rats' optic nerves as an easily accessible part of the CNS. RESULTS Several age changes were observed in aging rats (36 months) vs. young adult rats (6 months), namely degeneration of axons, decreased packing density and morphological alterations of myelination, including the ballooning of some myelin sheaths, separation of myelin lamellae and degenerative changes in the oligodendrocytes population. CONCLUSION Cognitive decline related to aging may occur in part due to the disturbed myelination of axons in CNS white matter.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hamdino Attia
- a Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine , Al-Azhar University , Damietta , Egypt and Faculty of Physical Therapy, Horus University, Damietta, Egypt
| | - Medhat Taha
- b Department of Anatomy , College of Medicine , Mansoura , Egypt
| | - Ahmed Abdellatif
- c Department of Biology, School of Sciences & Engineering , American University in Cairo , New Cairo , Egypt
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