BackgroundPsychiatric disorders such as mood disorders are increasingly common in modern society, carrying social and economic burdens, including the risk of suicide. Timely identification of these disorders and intervention is crucial, and ongoing research explores adjunctive diagnostic tools and biomarkers, alongside patient history, to aid early detection.Aims & ObjectivesThe study seeks to utilize functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for its cost-effectiveness and ease of use, aiming to improve the diagnosis and differentiation of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Bipolar Disorder (BP) from the healthy control (HC) group.MethodThirty participants each from MDD, BP, and HC groups, were diagnosed using DSM-IV criteria, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, and Clinical Global Impression scores, and performed a verbal fluency task. They recited Korean vowels and produced words starting with specific consonants within the allotted times. The fNIRS system, NIRSIT, included 24 lasers, 32 photodetectors, and oxyhemoglobin waveforms were analyzed for integral and centroid values. One-way ANOVA and ANCOVA assessed differences and the impact of age, education, and task performance. ResultsFigure 1 displays the average oxyhemoglobin waveforms in the frontal region (R1) and bilateral temporal regions (R2) for each group. The MDD participants were older than the BP and HC groups (F = 14.664, p<0.005). Task performance was similar for MDD and HC, and better than BP (F = 5.622, p <0.005). One- way ANOVA indicated significant differences in integral values across the groups and post-hoc analyses highlighted substantial distinctions between the healthy control (HC) and the psychiatric disorder groups (HC vs BP, HC vs MDD; P <0.05). Although no significant differences were observed in centroid values between patient groups, each group exhibited unique patterns.Discussion & ConclusionUsing fNIRS, the findings suggest that IV and CV, derived from changes in hemoglobin waveforms, hold promise in distinguishing individuals with mood disorders from healthy controls. While further research is needed to explore their applicability to other psychiatric conditions such as psychosis, there is potential for them to serve as auxiliary diagnostic tools in the future for personalized psychiatric treatment.

BackgroundSchizophrenia has been considered as a brain disorder which deteriorates cognitive and social function in affected people. Whether the aging effect will further decline the brain function of schizophrenic patients or not is rarely discussed before.Aims & ObjectivesWe here applied fNIRS (functional infrared spectrometry) to measure brain function of schizophrenia to tell the difference from normal with age effect adjustment.MethodWe recruited schizophrenia people and normal controls with different age from 2015 to 2018 with IRB approval in one medical center in central Taiwan. After consent form completed, their brain function performance was measured by using Hitachi ETG 4000 with both centroid and integral data over frontal and bilateral temporal regions channels once. The standard VFT (verbal fluency test) Taiwan version was tested to record the change of oxygenated and deoxygenated hemoglobin reflection curve during the task.ResultsThe sample size is 87 for schizophrenic patients and 88 for normal controls. The average integral value of frontal function is lower in people with schizophrenia compared to normal controls, and between group difference is decreasing while people getting older (Fig 1). The average centroid value of frontal function is higher in people with schizophrenia over normal one at any age stage, and the average group gap is increasing by years of aging (Fig 2).Discussion & ConclusionThe brain function by measuring integral value showed the total working performance during VFT, which showed a greater slope of decline in normal people compared to schizophrenia. However, the reaction lag time after task start during VFT by observing centroid value is prolonged among old people with schizophrenia compared to normal control ones, it might reveal a worse response on cognitive performance for older schizophrenic patients at the same age level. In general, the brain function measured by fNIRS showed a worse outcome in people with schizophrenia compared to normal controls with compatible age level.

Speech comprehension involves the dynamic interplay of multiple cognitive processes, from basic sound perception, to linguistic encoding, and finally to complex semantic-conceptual interpretations. How the brain handles the diverse streams of information processing remains poorly understood. Applying Hidden Markov Modeling to fMRI data obtained during spoken narrative comprehension, we reveal that the whole brain networks predominantly oscillate within a tripartite latent state space. These states are, respectively, characterized by high activities in the sensory-motor (State #1), bilateral temporal (State #2), and default mode networks (DMN; State #3) regions, with State #2 acting as a transitional hub. The three states are selectively modulated by the acoustic, word-level semantic, and clause-level semantic properties of the narrative. Moreover, the alignment with both the best performer and the group-mean in brain state expression can predict participants' narrative comprehension scores measured from the post-scan recall. These results are reproducible with different brain network atlas and generalizable to two datasets consisting of young and older adults. Our study suggests that the brain underlies narrative comprehension by switching through a tripartite state space, with each state probably dedicated to a specific component of language faculty, and effective narrative comprehension relies on engaging those states in a timely manner.

Perinatal depression (PD) is a highly prevalent psychological disorder that has a detrimental effect on infant and maternal physical and mental health, but effective and objective assessment of PD is still insufficient. In recent years, the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) has been acknowledged as an effective non-invasive tool for clinical assessment of depression. This study proposed a free association semantic task (FAST) paradigm for fNIRS-based assessment of PD. To better address the emotion characteristics of PD, the participants are required to generate a dynamic concept chain based on positive, negative or neutral seed words, while 48-channel fNIRS recordings over frontal and bilateral temporal regions. Results from twenty-two late-pregnant women revealed that, the oxyhemoglobin (oxy-Hb) changes during the FAST with the positive and negative seed words over the frontal region were correlated with PD severity, which was different from the correlation patterns in the FAST with neutral seed word and the classical verbal fluency test (VFT). Furthermore, distinct correlation patterns were also observed in the FAST with the positive and negative seed words, manifested in fNIRS channels corresponding to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), respectively. Moreover, regression analyses showed that the FAST with positive and negative seed words can well explain the severity of PD. Our findings suggest the proposed FAST paradigm as a promising approach for PD assessment.

Syntactic development and its interplay with word processing and working memory in preschoolers' brain: An fNIRS longitudinal study.

Managing Cancer and Living Meaningfully (CALM) intervention's impact on chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment (CRCI) in breast cancer survivors (BCs) was investigated through resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) to elucidate the underlying neural mechanisms involved. 68 BCs were randomly assigned to either the CALM group (33 patients) or the care-as-usual (CAU) group (35 patients). Cognitive function was assessed before and after the intervention in both groups using the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scale. Pre- and post-intervention rs-fMRI data were also collected for regional homogeneity (ReHo) and functional connectivity (FC) analyses in the CALM group. A total of 68 BCs were randomly assigned to either the CALM group (n = 33) or the care-as-usual (CAU) group (n = 35). Cognitive function was evaluated pre- and post-intervention using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). In the CALM group, rs-fMRI data were acquired before and after the intervention to assess alterations in regional homogeneity (ReHo) and functional connectivity (FC). CALM intervention demonstrated a greater enhancement in cognitive function compared to CAU (P = 0.004). Following CALM, ReHo exhibited an increase in bilateral occipital and temporal regions, including the superior, middle, and inferior occipital gyri, lingual gyrus, as well as the middle and superior temporal gyri, while a decrease was observed in frontal and cingulate regions, including the bilateral middle, medial, and dorsolateral superior frontal gyri, anterior cingulate and paracingulate gyri, precuneus, posterior cingulate, and left angular gyrus. FC analysis revealed diminished connectivity between the middle frontal gyrus and occipital/calcarine regions, whereas connectivity strengthened with the left anterior cingulate/paracingulate and right orbital frontal regions. ΔMMSE exhibited a positive correlation with ReHo in the left middle frontal gyrus (r = 0.355, P = 0.042) and a reduction in middle frontal-occipital FC (left calcarine: r = 0.353, P = 0.044; right/left middle occipital: r = 0.388/0.423, P = 0.029/0.014). CALM intervention mitigates CRCI in BCs, with the middle frontal gyrus may play a critical.

We investigated semantic cognition in the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia, including (i) the status of verbal and non-verbal semantic performance; and (ii) whether the semantic deficit reflects impaired semantic control. Our a priori hypothesis that individuals with logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia would exhibit semantic control impairments was motivated by the anatomical overlap between the temporoparietal atrophy typically associated with logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia and lesions associated with post-stroke semantic aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia, which cause heteromodal semantic control impairments. We addressed the presence, type (semantic representation and semantic control; verbal and non-verbal), and progression of semantic deficits in logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia. Since most people with logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia have Alzheimer's disease pathology and are part of a broader multi-dimensional phenotype space encompassing Alzheimer's disease sub-types, we compared semantic performance in logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia and typical amnestic Alzheimer's disease. Given the differences in lesion and atrophy patterns in semantic aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia versus semantic-dementia/semantic-variant primary progressive aphasia patients, our second aim was to examine atrophy patterns in people with logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia and typical Alzheimer's disease compared to age-matched controls. Twenty-seven patients participated in the study. People were grouped into those meeting consensus criteria for logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (N = 10) and others who may have previously satisfied definitions of logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia but had progressed with multi-domain cognitive impairments (herein referred to as 'logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia+'; N = 8). People with typical amnestic Alzheimer's disease (N = 9) were relatively preserved across verbal and non-verbal semantic assessments. Logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia patients were impaired on both verbal and non-verbal semantic tasks and their impairments showed the hallmark characteristics of a semantic control deficit. Logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia and logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia + patients showed effects of varying semantic control demands, positive cueing effects, and correlated performance between semantic and executive tasks. Whole-brain voxel-based morphometry, comparing each of the patient groups to age-matched controls, revealed significantly reduced grey and white matter in the bilateral hippocampi and lateral temporal regions in typical Alzheimer's disease patients. The logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia group exhibited an asymmetric pattern of reduced grey and white matter intensity in the language-dominant left hemisphere, including a significant portion of the lateral and medial temporal lobe. Logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia + patients demonstrated reduced grey and white matter in the left temporal lobe extending sub-cortically, anteriorly and posteriorly, as well as right temporal involvement. Our findings could aid diagnostic sub-typing of primary progressive aphasia by adopting semantic control features and offer improved clinical characterization of logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia in the trajectory of semantic decline.

Abstract BackgroundWe recently reported that subjects who had worsening sleep over time had a clear worsening of both memory and brain metabolism compared to subjects whose sleep improved over time, and metabolic decline was particularly significant in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) (Alzheimer’s Dement. 2023; 19(Suppl. 24):e082867), an area of the brain that metabolically declines in the earliest stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Here we investigate the impact of worsening sleep on regional metabolic decline in Apolipoprotein E epsilon 4 positive (APOE4+) subjects compared to APOE4‐ subjects.MethodA consecutive series of 2,005 cognitively normal and mildly impaired subjects from more than 50 North American sites participating in the first three phases of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were studied. Changes in cognition assessed through formal neuropsychological testing, and in regional cerebral metabolism assessed through brain PET using the radiotracer [F‐18]fluorodeoxyglucose were examined. Activities in 47 standardized volumes of interest (sVOI’s), as normalized to each subject’s pons activity, were longitudinally measured.ResultIn this consecutive series of subjects, 211 were found to have had a change in insomnia status during their participation: 83 who were documented to have insomnia at baseline that was subsequently alleviated (“improving sleep”), and 128 who were documented to have no insomnia at baseline but developed it during the study period (“worsening sleep”); of the 211, 62 (29%) underwent FDG‐PET scans during both baseline insomnia and subsequent insomnia‐free status, or both baseline normal sleep and subsequent insomnia status periods. Within this group, 27 subjects were APOE4+ and 35 were APOE‐, with 59% of the APOE4+ subjects belonging to the worsening sleep group, and 41% within the improving sleep group. In the worsening sleep group with APOE4+ status, there was metabolic decline in bilateral mesial temporal and right thalamic regions (p&amp;lt;0.0001), but not among those with APOE4‐ status (p&amp;gt;0.50).ConclusionWorsening sleep was associated with regionally specific cerebral metabolic decline, as described above, in APOE4+ but not APOE4‐ non‐demented subjects, suggesting that poor sleep status may pose especially heightened risk of decline for those bearing APOE4 alleles.

Abstract BackgroundRight temporal variant frontotemporal dementia (rtvFTD), a new recognized entity among the FTD‐spectrum, is characterized by right anterior temporal lobe (rATL) atrophy and a peculiar clinical presentation, involving face and emotions recognition, memory, and naming deficits and behavioral disturbances. Clinical diagnosis is challenging, since rtvFTD shares features with both the behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD) and the semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), and there is no consensus yet on its designation and characterization. Although rATL neurodegeneration is a hallmark of this syndrome, only a few studies investigated patterns of gray matter (GM) atrophy. Even less is known about white matter (WM) involvement. We conducted a preliminary study on the rtvFTD neuroimaging features using multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).MethodWe compared GM volume and WM microstructural integrity in rtvFTD (n=3) and svPPA (n=3) patients, and healthy controls (HC, n=27), using voxel‐based morphometry (VBM) and tract‐based spatial statistics (TBSS). Age and disease duration were considered as covariates of no interest.ResultSvPPA patients showed GM atrophy in the left temporal structures relative to HC. rtvFTD patients compared to HC showed not only GM atrophy in the right frontal and temporal structures, but also in the insula bilaterally, and in the left temporal and orbitofrontal cortices. Direct comparison between rtvFTD and svPPA showed that rtvFTD were more atrophic than svPPA patients in the bilateral temporal and frontal regions. Moreover, rtvFTD patients had less WM integrity than controls in the corpus callosum and the right inferior fronto‐occipital, inferior longitudinal, and uncinate fasciculi, while svPPA patients had decreased WM integrity in the corpus callosum and the left inferior fronto‐occipital fasciculus.ConclusionWe found that rtvFTD patients show greater atrophy compared to svPPA patients both in the right and left hemisphere, independently of disease duration. This suggests that rtvFTD and svPPA do not mirror each other in GM loss, and that a neurodegenerative process starting in the right hemisphere must be more widespread to become clinically evident. We also demonstrate that rtvFTD patients show WM disruption in fasciculi which have been implicated in face recognition, emotion processing, and language functions, in line with the clinical picture.

Abstract BackgroundTau‐PET and plasma phosphorylated tau (p‐tau) have emerged as pivotal biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease. Despite the practical advantages of using plasma p‐tau, there is limited understanding regarding its relationship with the topographic distribution of tau‐PET, particularly within the Southeast Asian population. This study aims to elucidate the correlation between plasma p‐tau levels and the spatial patterns observed in tau‐PET among Thai patients diagnosed with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or mild dementia due to probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD).MethodsThirty patients were included in this study. Correlations between plasma p‐tau and tau‐PET standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) in each cortical region were analyzed. Patients were further stratified into low and high amyloid‐beta (Aβ) groups using Aβ centiloid (AβCL) median split for additional subgroup analyses. Plasma p‐tau217 was measured on the Mesoscale Discovery platform with the S‐PLEX Human Tau (pT217) Kit. PET tracers for tau and Aβ were PI‐2620 and 18F‐florbetaben. Brain parcellation for regional tau‐PET analyses was performed using FreeSurfer.ResultsThe mean age was 69.8 ± 8.4 years, with 20 female patients (66.7%). The median[IQR] value for plasma p‐tau217 was 7.87[11.37] pg/mL. Median[IQR] values for overall tau‐PET SUVR and AβCL were 1.20[0.35] and 43.56[53.70], respectively. Figure 1 illustrates cortical regions where plasma p‐tau217 significantly correlates with tau‐PET SUVR (p&lt;0.05), with higher color intensity indicating stronger correlation coefficients. Cortical parcels demonstrating the highest correlation coefficients include the right anterior cingulate gyrus (r=0.74, p&lt;0.001) and superior frontal gyri in both the left (r=0.73, p&lt;0.001) and right (r=0.72, p&lt;0.001) hemispheres. Figures 2 and 3 depict such cortical regions in low Aβ and high Aβ groups, respectively.ConclusionsIn our study population, plasma p‐tau and tau‐PET SUVR exhibit correlations in most cortical regions, with a characteristic sparing of primary cortices. These correlations cluster in bilateral inferomedial temporal regions in the low Aβ group. In the high Aβ group, correlations are primarily observed in neocortical areas, including frontal, anterior temporal, and temporoparietal regions. This suggests that the relationship between plasma p‐tau and tau pathology may vary based on Aβ levels, providing valuable information for understanding disease progression.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition associated with altered resting-state brain function. An increased excitation-inhibition (E/I) ratio is discussed as a potential pathomechanism but in-vivo evidence of disturbed neurotransmission underlying these functional alterations remains scarce. We compared rs-fMRI local activity (LCOR) between ASD (N=405, N=395) and neurotypical controls (N=473, N=474) in two independent cohorts (ABIDE1 and ABIDE2). We then tested how these LCOR alterations co-localize with specific neurotransmitter systems derived from nuclear imaging and compared them with E/I changes induced by GABAergic (midazolam) and glutamatergic medication (ketamine). Across both cohorts, ASD subjects consistently exhibited reduced LCOR, particularly in higher-order default mode network nodes, alongside increases in bilateral temporal regions, the cerebellum, and brainstem. These LCOR alterations negatively co-localized with dopaminergic (D1, D2, DAT), glutamatergic (NMDA, mGluR5), GABAergic (GABAa) and cholinergic neurotransmission (VAChT). The NMDA-antagonist ketamine, but not GABAa-potentiator midazolam, induced LCOR changes which co-localize with D1, NMDA and GABAa receptors, thereby resembling alterations observed in ASD. We find consistent local activity alterations in ASD to be spatially associated with several major neurotransmitter systems. NMDA-antagonist ketamine induced neurochemical changes similar to ASD-related alterations, supporting the notion that pharmacological modulation of the E/I balance in healthy individuals can induce ASD-like functional brain changes. These findings provide novel insights into neurophysiological mechanisms underlying ASD.

Language learning is influenced by both neural development and environmental experiences. This work investigates the influence of early bilingual experience on the neural mechanisms underlying speech processing in 4-month-old infants. We study how an early environmental factor such as bilingualism interacts with neural development by comparing monolingual and bilingual infants' brain responses to speech. We used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure 4-month-old Spanish-Basque bilingual and Spanish monolingual infants' brain responses while they listened to forward (FW) and backward (BW) speech stimuli in Spanish. We reveal distinct neural signatures associated with bilingual adaptations, including increased engagement of bilateral inferior frontal and temporal regions during speech processing in bilingual infants, as opposed to left hemispheric functional specialization observed in monolingual infants. This study provides compelling evidence of bilingualism-induced brain adaptations during speech processing in infants as young as 4 months. These findings emphasize the role of early language experience in shaping neural plasticity during infancy suggesting that bilingual exposure at this young age profoundly influences the neural mechanisms underlying speech processing.

Introduction: Although the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is higher in older people compared to younger people, dementia has also been documented in younger adults. Although early-onset dementia and late-onset dementia had been considered a single disease in pathological investigations, many studies revealed differences in cognitive and neuroimaging changes between them. We evaluated differences in cognitive and neuroimaging changes among the following groups: individuals with early-onset AD (EOAD), late-onset AD (LOAD), early-onset mild cognitive impairment (EOMCI), or late-onset MCI (LOMCI), and healthy controls (HCs). Methods: Patients underwent both a 1.5 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scan and the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Differences in regional gray matter volumes and MMSE subscales were investigated among the five diagnostic groups. Results: Compared to the EOAD group, the LOAD group had significantly higher scores on orientation in place. Compared to the LOMCI patients, the EOMCI patients achieved significantly higher recall scores. The LOAD and LOMC groups showed significant volume reductions in bilateral medial temporal regions compared to the HCs. The EOAD and EOMCI groups did not show significant atrophy of the medial temporal region compared to the HC group. Conclusions: The hippocampal volume and memory were preserved in the patients with EOMCI or EOAD compared to those with LOMCI or LOAD. These findings may indicate that the distinct and differing patterns of neuropsychological changes between EOAD and LOAD are also common in MCI, which is intermediate between normal cognition and AD.

Interictal epileptiform discharges (IEDs) alter brain connectivity in children with epilepsy; this connectivity change may be a mechanism by which epilepsy induces cognitive deficits. Here, we test whether repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS), a non-invasive neuromodulation technique, modulates connectivity and reduces IEDs in children with epilepsy. Nineteen children with self-limited epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (SeLECTS) participated in a cross-over study comparing the impact of active vs. sham rTMS on IEDs and brain connectivity. SeLECTS is an epilepsy syndrome affecting the motor cortex, and prior studies show that motor cortices become pathologically hyper-connected to frontal and temporal language cortices. Using a crossover design, we compared the effect of single doses of active versus sham motor cortex rTMS. Connectivity, which was quantified by the weighted phase lag index (wPLI), was measured before and after rTMS using single pulses of TMS combined with EEG (spTMS-EEG). Analyses focused on six regions: bilateral motor cortices and bilateral inferior frontal and superior temporal regions. IEDs were counted in the five minutes before and after rTMS. Active, but not sham, rTMS significantly and globally decreased wPLI connectivity between multiple regions, with the greatest reductions seen in the superior temporal region connections in the stimulated hemisphere. Additionally, there was a trend suggesting that rTMS decreases IED frequency. These findings underscore the potential of low-frequency rTMS to target pathologic hyperconnectivity and reduce IEDs in children with SeLECTS and potentially other pediatric epilepsy syndromes, offering a promising avenue for therapeutic intervention.

Task‐related studies have consistently reported that listening to speech sounds activate the temporal and prefrontal regions of the brain. However, it is not well understood how functional organization of auditory and language networks differ when processing speech sounds from its resting state form. The knowledge of language network organization in typically developing infants could serve as an important biomarker to understand network‐level disruptions expected in infants with hearing impairment. We hypothesized that topological differences of language networks can be characterized using functional connectivity measures in two experimental conditions (1) complete silence (resting) and (2) in response to repetitive continuous speech sounds (steady). Thirty normal‐hearing infants (14 males and 16 females, age: 7.8 ± 4.8 months) were recruited in this study. Brain activity was recorded from bilateral temporal and prefrontal regions associated with speech and language processing for two experimental conditions: resting and steady states. Topological differences of functional language networks were characterized using graph theoretical analysis. The normalized global efficiency and clustering coefficient were used as measures of functional integration and segregation, respectively. We found that overall, language networks of infants demonstrate the economic small‐world organization in both resting and steady states. Moreover, language networks exhibited significantly higher functional integration and significantly lower functional segregation in resting state compared to steady state. A secondary analysis that investigated developmental effects of infants aged 6‐months or below and above 6‐months revealed that such topological differences in functional integration and segregation across resting and steady states can be reliably detected after the first 6‐months of life. The higher functional integration observed in resting state suggests that language networks of infants facilitate more efficient parallel information processing across distributed language regions in the absence of speech stimuli. Moreover, higher functional segregation in steady state indicates that the speech information processing occurs within densely interconnected specialized regions in the language network.

Schizophrenia (SCZ) is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous disorder that shares genetic factors with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A genome-wide association study (GWAS) differentiating ADHD from ASD was performed recently. In this study, we investigated whether polygenic risk scores (PRSs) differentiating ASD from ADHD are associated with cognitive impairments and alterations in cortical structures in SCZ patients. Based on the GWAS data (9,315 ASD and 11,964 ADHD patients), PRSs differentiating ADHD from ASD (indicating a greater risk of ADHD and a lower risk of ASD) were calculated for SCZ patients (n = 168). Cognitive performance, including verbal comprehension (VC), perceptual organization (PO), working memory (WM), and processing speed (PS), was assessed using the WAIS-III (n = 145). The surface areas and cortical thicknesses of 34 bilateral brain regions were extracted using FreeSurfer (n = 126). We examined the associations of these PRSs with cognitive performance and cortical structures in SCZ patients. Among the four cognitive domains, a higher PRS, indicating a greater risk of ADHD, was associated with impaired WM in SCZ patients (beta=-0.21, p = 0.012). A lower PRS, indicating a greater risk of ASD, was associated with decreased surface areas of the left medial orbitofrontal (beta = 0.21, p = 8.29 × 10− 4), left entorhinal (beta = 0.21, p = 0.025), left postcentral (beta = 0.18, p = 7.52 × 10− 3), right fusiform (beta = 0.17, p = 6.64 × 10− 3), and left fusiform cortices (beta = 0.17, p = 7.77 × 10− 3) in SCZ patients. A higher PRS, indicating a greater risk of ADHD, was associated with decreased cortical thickness in the bilateral transverse temporal regions (left, beta=-0.17, p = 0.039; right, beta=-0.17, p = 0.045). Our study revealed a relationship between genetic factors that differentiate ADHD patients from ASD patients and both cortical structure and cognitive performance in SCZ patients. These findings suggest that the heterogeneity of SCZ might be partly derived from genetic factors related to neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders other than SCZ.

Declarative memory encompasses episodic and semantic divisions. Episodic memory captures singular events with specific spatiotemporal relationships, whereas semantic memory houses context-independent knowledge. Behavioural and functional neuroimaging studies have revealed common and distinct neural substrates of both memory systems, implicating mesiotemporal lobe (MTL) regions such as the hippocampus and distributed neocortices. Here, we explored declarative memory system reorganization in patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) as a human disease model to test the impact of variable degrees of MTL pathology on memory function.Our cohort included 31 patients with TLE and 60 age- and sex-matched healthy controls, and all participants underwent episodic and semantic retrieval tasks during a multimodal MRI session. The functional MRI tasks were closely matched in terms of stimuli and trial design. Capitalizing on non-linear connectome gradient-mapping techniques, we derived task-based functional topographies during episodic and semantic memory states, in both the MTL and neocortical networks.Comparing neocortical and hippocampal functional gradients between TLE patients and healthy controls, we observed a marked topographic reorganization of both neocortical and MTL systems during episodic memory states. Neocortical alterations were characterized by reduced functional differentiation in TLE across lateral temporal and midline parietal cortices in both hemispheres. In the MTL, in contrast, patients presented with a more marked functional differentiation of posterior and anterior hippocampal segments ipsilateral to the seizure focus and pathological core, indicating perturbed intrahippocampal connectivity. Semantic memory reorganization was also found in bilateral lateral temporal and ipsilateral angular regions, whereas hippocampal functional topographies were unaffected. Furthermore, leveraging MRI proxies of MTL pathology, we observed alterations in hippocampal microstructure and morphology that were associated with TLE-related functional reorganization during episodic memory. Moreover, correlation analysis and statistical mediation models revealed that these functional alterations contributed to behavioural deficits in episodic memory, but again not in semantic memory in patients.Altogether, our findings suggest that semantic processes rely on distributed neocortical networks, whereas episodic processes are supported by a network involving both the hippocampus and the neocortex. Alterations of such networks can provide a compact signature of state-dependent reorganization in conditions associated with MTL damage, such as TLE.

This study investigates neural activity during a clinical hearing test transformed into a neuroimaging speech paradigm, focusing on individuals with cochlear implants (CIs) and normal hearing (NH) controls. Participants listened to sentences in quiet and noise conditions, and answered comprehension questions, while brain activation patterns were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). NH participants exhibited effective strategies for speech comprehension in noise, with increased activity in left prefrontal regions. Good-performing CI users showed reduced accuracy and confidence, coupled with elevated listening effort in both conditions. Their brain activity in the bilateral temporal and left prefrontal regions were comparable to NH. Poor-performing CI users exhibited high effort and low accuracy in noise, with unclear brain activation patterns, suggesting cortical challenges in adapting to the auditory input provided by CIs.Clinical relevance- The study provides important insights into the compensatory strategies and cognitive demands of CI users during different hearing conditions. This contributes to our understanding of the neural aspects in speech processing for individuals with hearing loss and guide potential interventions and further improvement of devices to improve the auditory experience of CI users.

Functional MRI-based biomarkers of insomnia with objective short sleep duration phenotype

What is the function of auditory hemispheric asymmetry? We propose that the identification of sound sources relies on the asymmetric processing of two complementary and perceptually relevant acoustic invariants: actions and objects. In a large dataset of environmental sounds, we observed that temporal and spectral modulations display only weak covariation. We then synthesized auditory stimuli by simulating various actions (frictions) occurring on different objects (solid surfaces). Behaviorally, discrimination of actions relies on temporal modulations, while discrimination of objects relies on spectral modulations. Functional magnetic resonance imaging data showed that actions and objects are decoded in the left and right hemispheres, respectively, in bilateral superior temporal and left inferior frontal regions. This asymmetry reflects a generic differential processing-through differential neural sensitivity to temporal and spectral modulations present in environmental sounds-that supports the efficient categorization of actions and objects. These results support an ecologically valid framework of the functional role of auditory brain asymmetry.