Changes In Brain Morphology Research Articles

Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging in patients with multiple sclerosis before and after high-dose immunosuppressive therapy and autologous hemopoietic stem cell transplantation

BACKGROUND: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic autoimmune disease characterized by multifocal foci of demyelination in the central nervous system, usually affecting people of working age. The disease causes damage to the blood-brain barrier, the development of multifocal inflammation, destruction of the myelin sheath of axons and various degrees of damage. It is clinically manifested by restriction of motor activity, visual acuity, as well as other symptoms leading to loss of performance and disability of the patient. AIM: determination of changes in the functional connectivity of brain neural networks in patients with multiple sclerosis before and after high-dose immunosuppressive therapy and autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation by performing functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data of functional magnetic resonance imaging of patients with multiple sclerosis were analyzed in dynamics before and after the use of high-dose immunosuppressive therapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. The study involved 25 patients with a verified diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Each underwent complex magnetic resonance imaging at two time points (before and after high-dose immunosuppressive therapy followed by autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation) with a difference of 12 months, which included structural magnetic resonance imaging - in order to exclude the presence of pathological foci in the brain (in addition to foci of multiple sclerosis) and functional magnetic resonance imaging.-resonance imaging at rest — to assess functional connectivity. Also, according to the method generally accepted in classical neurology, a clinical neurological examination was performed. RESULTS: At the stage of comparing data on the two groups obtained using functional magnetic resonance imaging at rest, changes in functional activity were detected in various parts of the brain, presumably responsible for clinical differences in the studied groups. CONCLUSION: Currently, the links between brain structures and morphological changes that cause cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis are being studied. To predict the progression of the disease, the development of biomarkers, including those based on functional magnetic resonance imaging, is required. Evaluating changes in the functional connectivity of brain neural networks can help personalize therapeutic and rehabilitation approaches.

Effects of a 6-month aerobic exercise intervention on brain morphology in women with breast cancer receiving aromatase inhibitor therapy: a sub-study of the EPICC trial.

Physical exercise may increase brain volume and cortical thickness in late adulthood. However, few studies have examined the possibility for exercise to influence brain morphology in women treated for breast cancer. We conducted a nested sub-study within a randomized clinical trial to examine whether 6 months of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise in postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer influences brain morphology. We included twenty-eight postmenopausal women newly diagnosed with Stage 0-IIIa breast cancer (M age = 62.96 ± 5.40) who were randomized to either 45-60 min of supervised aerobic exercise 3 days/week (n = 16) or usual care (n = 12). Before beginning aromatase inhibitor aromatase inhibitor therapy, and the exercise intervention, and again at 6-month follow-up, volumetric and cortical thickness measures were derived from magnetic resonance imaging scans. There were no significant intervention effects on brain volume and cortical thickness. However, greater average exercise intensity (%) during the intervention was associated with greater post-intervention cortical volume, mean cortical thickness, precentral gyrus thickness, and superior parietal thickness (all p < 0.05). Finally, total supervised exercise time was associated with higher precentral gyrus thickness after the intervention (p = 0.042, R 2 = 0.263). The exercise intervention did not significantly affect brain volumes and cortical thickness compared to the control group. However, positive associations were found between exercise intensity and brain morphology changes after the 6-month intervention, indicating that exercise may reduce the vulnerability of the brain to the deleterious effects of breast cancer and its treatment.

P09.02.A A WINDOW TO THE BRAIN: MONITORING THE HUMAN BRAIN USING FUNCTIONAL ULTRASOUND (FUS)-IMAGING IN FREELY MOVING SUBJECTS WITH AN ACOUSTICALLY FAVORABLE SKULL IMPLANT

Abstract BACKGROUND To this day, the mainstay of human neuroimaging remains (functional) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), where subjects are asked to lie completely still and silent in a noisy scanner. Many key questions in clinical care and neuroscience remain poorly studied because of fMRI’s inability to facilitate natural behavior such as locomotion or even verbal speech. What is more, due to the cost and size of an (f)MRI-machine, monitoring of morphological (i.e. tumor regrowth) or functional changes in the human brain, pre- and post-tumor resection, is often spread out over intervals of many months, leaving patients in suspense about possible tumor regrowth.With the advent of ultrafast ultrasound imaging, a new high-resolution, depth-resolved and mobile neuro-imaging technique called functional Ultrasound (fUS) has emerged. In the last decade, fUS has been applied successfully in awake neurosurgical contexts to map out hemodynamics-based functional brain activity as well as tumor tissue at a mesoscopic scale. However, given the significant aberration of ultrasound signal through human skull bone, fUS is not available outside of OR as of yet. As a first step outside of the OR, we aimed to apply fUS in freely moving subjects with a skull bone defect covered by PEEK, an acoustically favorable material. MATERIAL AND METHODS Two subjects with PEEK-implants were repeatedly imaged over a period of &amp;gt;1 year. One of the subjects received a PEEK-implant after infection of the autologous bone, post-resection of an astrocytoma. Each subject received a custom-fitted 3D-printed helmet based on their MRI to fixate the probe and to attach the geometry needed for optical tracking. Using an optical tracking camera, the position of the Power Doppler Image (PDI) relative to CT/(f)MRI-volumes of the subject could be determined in real-time. Images were acquired using an experimental research system (Vantage-256, Verasonics) interfaced with a 9L-D linear array (GE, 5.3 MHz). All scans were acquired with a PRF of 800 Hz. The PDIs and angle compounded beamformed frames were stored for offline processing, consisting of 3D-vascular reconstructions and functional mapping. Functional tasks focused on the sensorimotor area of the lip. For measurements outside of the lab, the acquisition system was transformed into a mobile cart, which could be pushed by the subject itself. RESULTS Trans-PEEK imaging resulted in PDIs with highly detailed vasculature of healthy brain tissue and the resection cavity, up to several centimeters in-depth, reproduced reliably over a period of &amp;gt;12 months. In sedentary, standing and walking conditions, we were able to produce consistent functional maps of the human brain. CONCLUSION Our current work demonstrates how fUS has the potential to become a powerful window to the brain, both in terms of vascular monitoring of tumor regrowth, as well as functional brain mapping, outside of the operating room.

Restorative Effect of Consuming Red Wine Against Adverse Changes in the Brain of Rodents Exposed to Beer

Objective: There is a surge in the availability of alcoholic products accompanied by a high rate of consumption despite increasing neurological problems. Aim of this study is to determine whether regular intake of brewed beer and red wine affects the microanatomy of the cerebral cortex, hippocampus and brain weight. Materials and Methods: 20 male albino Wistar rats were assigned to four groups of five animals each. Group A, the control was given distilled water; Group B was administered 5 mL/kg body weight of beer; Group C received 5 ml/kg of red wine; and Group D was dosed with 5 ml/kg of beer and followed with 5 ml/kg of red wine. Daily treatments by gavage lasted 15 days, and animal subjects were euthanized via cervical dislocation on day 16. Individual brains were collected and weighed using an electronic scale (SF-400) and afterwards dissected to obtain tissue samples from the cerebral cortex and hippocampus, immediately fixed in 10% formalin for micro-anatomic studies. The paraffin embedding method was used for histological preparation while sections were cut at 5 µm and stained with hematoxylin and eosin. Brain weight was analyzed using the Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) software via one-way analysis of variance. Results: Histopathological changes including intracerebral haemorrhage and loss of pyramidal neurons observed in group B (beer) samples were not visible in Group D (beer plus red wine), while no microstructural changes occurred in group C (red wine) sections when compared with the control. The output of statistical analysis showed a non-significant reduction in brain weight of group B, whereas a significant increase was noticed in group C while group D showed a non-significant increase. Conclusion: These findings indicate that red wine counteracts beer-induced changes in brain morphology, hypothesising the neuroprotective effect of the wine.

Uncovering neural substrates across Alzheimer's disease stages using contrastive variational autoencoder.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common major neurocognitive disorder. Although currently, no cure exists, understanding the neurobiological substrate underlying Alzheimer's disease progression will facilitate early diagnosis and treatment, slow disease progression, and improve prognosis. In this study, we aimed to understand the morphological changes underlying Alzheimer's disease progression using structural magnetic resonance imaging data from cognitively normal individuals, individuals with mild cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease via a contrastive variational autoencoder model. We used contrastive variational autoencoder to generate synthetic data to boost the downstream classification performance. Due to the ability to parse out the nonclinical factors such as age and gender, contrastive variational autoencoder facilitated a purer comparison between different Alzheimer's disease stages to identify the pathological changes specific to Alzheimer's disease progression. We showed that brain morphological changes across Alzheimer's disease stages were significantly associated with individuals' neurofilament light chain concentration, a potential biomarker for Alzheimer's disease, highlighting the biological plausibility of our results.

Structural and functional alterations in MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy and associated gene expression features

Neuroimaging techniques have been widely used in the study of epilepsy. However, structural and functional changes in the MRI-negative drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE) and the genetic mechanisms behind the structural alterations remain poorly understood. Using structural and functional MRI, we analyzed gray matter volume (GMV) and regional homogeneity (ReHo) in DRE, drug-sensitive epilepsy (DSE) and healthy controls. Gene expression data from Allen human brain atlas and GMV/ReHo were evaluated to obtain drug resistance-related and epilepsy-associated gene expression and compared with real transcriptional data in blood. We found structural and functional alterations in the cerebellum of DRE patients, which may be related to the mechanisms of drug resistance in DRE. Our study confirms that changes in brain morphology and regional activity in DRE patients may be associated with abnormal gene expression related to nervous system development. And SP1, as an important transcription factor, plays an important role in the mechanism of drug resistance.

Does sedentary time and physical activity predict chronic back pain and morphological brain changes? A UK biobank cohort study in 33,402 participants

BackgroundThe relationship between sedentary time, physical activity, and chronic back pain remains unclear. The study aims to investigate whether sedentary time and physical activity predict chronic back pain and morphological brain changes.MethodsThis cohort study recruited adults aged 37–73 years enrolled between 2006 and 2010, with follow-up until 2014. The total cohort comprised 33,402 participants (mean age: 54.53). Data were collected on daily sedentary time, physical activity, lifestyle factors, and health outcomes.ResultsAfter nearly 8-year follow-up, 3,006 individuals (9.00%) reported chronic back pain in total. Individuals with daily sedentary time exceeding 6 h had a 33% higher risk of chronic back pain compared to those with sedentary time of 2 h or less (RR, 1.33, 95%CI, 1.17–1.52). Sedentary time was also associated with decreased grey matter volume in several brain regions, including bilateral primary somatosensory cortex (S1), secondary somatosensory cortex, putamen, primary motor cortex (M1), insula, hippocampus, amygdala, as well as right supplementary motor area, left medial frontal cortex, and right anterior cingulate cortex (FDR-corrected p-value < 0.05). Compared to individuals who sat for more than 6 h with light physical activity, those engaging in moderate physical activity with sedentary time of 2 h or less (RR, 0.71, 95%CI, 0.52–0.99) exhibited a significant decrease in chronic back pain risk. In addition, replacing sedentary time with equivalent amount of physical activity also demonstrated a reduction in the risk of chronic back pain (RR, 0.87, 95%CI, 0.77–0.99) and increased the reginal grey matter volumes including the amygdala, insula, M1, putamen and S1.ConclusionsProlonged sedentary time is associated with heightened risks of chronic back pain and deterioration in brain health.

Does placental VEGF-A protein expression predict early neurological outcome of neonates from FGR complicated pregnancies?

Fetal hypoxia due to placental dysfunction is thehallmark of fetal growth restriction (FGR). Preferential perfusion of the brain (brain-sparing effect), as a part of physiological placental cardiovascular compensatory mechanisms to hypoxia, in FGR was reported. Therefore, the correlation between vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) protein expression in the FGR placentas and newborns' early neurological outcome was examined. This study included 50 women with FGR complicated pregnancies and 30 uneventful pregnancies. Fetal hemodynamic parameters, neonatal acid-base status after delivery, placental pathohistology and VEGF-A expression were followed. Early neonatal morphological brain evaluation by ultrasound and functional evaluation of neurological status by Amiel- Tison Neurological Assessment at Term (ATNAT) were performed. VEGF-A protein expression level was significantly higher in the FGR placentas than normal term placentas (Fisher-Freeman-Halton's test, p≤0.001). No statistically significant correlation between placental VEGF-A expression and different prenatal and postnatal parameters was noticed. Whereas the alteration of an early neurological status assessed by ATNAT was found in 58 % of FGR newborns, morphological brain changes evaluated by UZV was noticed in 48 % of cases. No association between the level of placental VEGF-A expression and the early neurological deficits was found. As far as we know this is the first study of a possible connection between VEGF-A protein expression in the FGR placentas and neonates' early neurological outcomes. The lack of correlation between the FGR placental VEGF-A expression and neonates' neurological outcome could indicate that optimal early neurodevelopment may take place due to compensatory mechanism not related to placental VEGF-A expression.

Comparative evaluation of interpretation methods in surface-based age prediction for neonates

Significant changes in brain morphology occur during the third trimester of gestation. The capability of deep learning in leveraging these morphological features has enhanced the accuracy of brain age predictions for this critical period. Yet, the opaque nature of deep learning techniques, often described as "black box" approaches, limits their interpretability, posing challenges in clinical applications. Traditional interpretable methods developed for computer vision and natural language processing may not directly translate to the distinct demands of neuroimaging. In response, our research evaluates the effectiveness and adaptability of two interpretative methods—regional age prediction and the perturbation-based saliency map approach—for predicting the brain age of neonates. Analyzing 664 T1 MRI scans with the NEOCIVET pipeline to extract brain surface and cortical features, we assess how these methods illuminate key brain regions for age prediction, focusing on technical analysis with clinical insight. Through a comparative analysis of the saliency index (SI) with relative brain age (RBA) and the examination of structural covariance networks, we uncover the saliency index's enhanced ability to pinpoint regions vital for accurate indication of clinical factors. Our results highlight the advantages of perturbation techniques in addressing the complexities of medical data, steering clinical interventions for premature neonates towards more personalized and interpretable approaches. This study not only reveals the promise of these methods in complex medical scenarios but also offers a blueprint for implementing more interpretable and clinically relevant deep learning models in healthcare settings.

Childhood anaesthesia and autism risk: population and murine study.

Early childhood exposure to general anaesthesia has been linked to potential changes in infant brain morphology and behaviour in preclinical studies, contributing to long-term behaviours associated with autism spectrum disorder. This study investigates the association between early childhood exposure to general anaesthesia and the risk of autism, using a population-based cohort study with matching for baseline characteristics and evaluates the effect of sevoflurane exposure on autism-like behaviour in mice, using the Taiwan Maternal and Child Health Database. Children aged 0-3 who received at least one exposure to general anaesthesia between 2004 and 2014 were matched 1:1 with children who were not exposed. Risk ratios and confidence intervals were used to assess the relationship between general anaesthesia and the occurrence of autism. Additionally, mice were exposed to sevoflurane for 2 h on postnatal days 5-7, and changes in behaviour related to autism were evaluated. Propensity score matching resulted in 7530 children in each group. The incidence rates (IRs) of autism were 11.26 and 6.05 per 100 000 person-years in the exposed and unexposed groups, respectively. The incidence ratio for autism following exposure to general anaesthesia was 1.86 (95% confidence interval, 1.34-2.59). In mice, sevoflurane exposure induced autism-like behaviours and led to the downregulation of high-risk autism genes, including ARID1B, GABRA5, GABRB3, GRIN2B, SHANK3 and SUV420H1. Early childhood exposure to general anaesthesia is associated with an increased risk of autism. Repeated exposure to sevoflurane in mice induces autism-like behaviours, suggesting a potential link between anaesthesia and the development of autism.

Circadian Rhythms Tied to Changes in Brain Morphology in a Densely Sampled Male.

Circadian, infradian, and seasonal changes in steroid hormone secretion have been tied to changes in brain volume in several mammalian species. However, the relationship between circadian changes in steroid hormone production and rhythmic changes in brain morphology in humans is largely unknown. Here, we examined the relationship between diurnal fluctuations in steroid hormones and multiscale brain morphology in a precision imaging study of a male who completed 40 MRI and serological assessments at 7 A.M. and 8 P.M. over the course of a month, targeting hormone concentrations at their peak and nadir. Diurnal fluctuations in steroid hormones were tied to pronounced changes in global and regional brain morphology. From morning to evening, total brain volume, gray matter volume, and cortical thickness decreased, coincident with decreases in steroid hormone concentrations (testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol). In parallel, cerebrospinal fluid and ventricle size increased from A.M. to P.M. Global changes were driven by decreases within the occipital and parietal cortices. These findings highlight natural rhythms in brain morphology that keep time with the diurnal ebb and flow of steroid hormones.

Behavioral and brain morphological changes before and after hemispherotomy.

Hemispherotomy is an effective surgery for treating refractory epilepsy from diffuse unihemispheric lesions. To date, postsurgery neuroplastic changes supporting behavioral recovery after left or right hemispherotomy remain unclear. In the present study, we systematically investigated changes in gray matter volume (GMV) before and after surgery and further analyzed their relationships with behavioral scores in two large groups of pediatric patients with left and right hemispherotomy (29 left and 28 right). To control for the dramatic developmental effect during this stage, age-adjusted GMV within unaffected brain regions was derived voxel by voxel using a normative modeling approach with an age-matched reference cohort of 2115 healthy children. Widespread GMV increases in the contralateral cerebrum and ipsilateral cerebellum and GMV decreases in the contralateral cerebellum were consistently observed in both patient groups, but only the left hemispherotomy patients showed GMV decreases in the contralateral cingulate gyrus. Intriguingly, the GMV decrease in the contralateral cerebellum was significantly correlated with improvement in behavioral scores in the right but not the left hemispherotomy patients. Importantly, the preoperative voxelwise GMV features can be used to significantly predict postoperative behavioral scores in both patient groups. These findings indicate an important role of the contralateral cerebellum in the behavioral recovery following right hemispherotomy and highlight the predictive potential of preoperative imaging features in postoperative behavioral performance.

Association of sarcopenia with regional brain atrophy and white matter lesions in a general older population: the Hisayama Study.

Sarcopenia has been reported to be associated with cognitive decline and the risk of dementia. However, few studies have addressed the association between sarcopenia and brain morphological changes in the general population. A total of 1373 community-dwelling participants aged ≥ 65years underwent brain MRI. Sarcopenia was defined based on the Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia's criteria. The pattern of regional gray matter volume loss associated with sarcopenia were assessed using a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis. Regional brain volumes, intracranial volumes (ICV), and white matter lesions volumes (WMLV) were also measured using FreeSurfer. An analysis of covariance was used to examine the associations of sarcopenia with regional brain volumes in proportion to ICV. Of the participants, 112 had sarcopenia. The participants with sarcopenia had significantly lower total brain volume/ICV and total gray matter volume/ICV and higher WMLV/ICV than those without sarcopenia after adjusting for confounders. In VBM, sarcopenia was associated with lower gray matter volume in the frontal lobe, insula, cingulate gyrus, hippocampus, amygdala, and basal ganglia. Using FreeSurfer, we confirmed that the participants with sarcopenia had significantly lower frontal, insular, cingulate, and hippocampal volumes than those without sarcopenia. The current study showed that participants with sarcopenia had significantly lower volume in the frontal lobe, insula, cingulate, and hippocampus and higher WMLV than participants without sarcopenia. As these brain regions are likely to play an important role in cognitive function, these changes may suggest a shared underlying mechanism for the progression of sarcopenia and cognitive decline.

Comparative Analysis of Patients Undergoing Microvascular Decompression for Trigeminal Neuralgia Caused by Solely Arterial or Solely Venous Compression

Trigeminal neuralgia (TN) due to venous compression is far less common than that due to arterial compression, and its pathogenesis is less clear. We investigated the clinical and imaging features of TN caused by solely venous compression by measuring the morphologies of the posterior cranial fossa (PCF) and the trigeminal nerve. We retrospectively reviewed records of TN patients who underwent microvascular decompression at our institution and extracted cases with solely arterial or solely venous compression. Preoperative magnetic resonance imaging was used to find the length (Y), width (X), height (Z), and volume (V) of the PCF, the angle between the trigeminal nerve and pons, and the distance between Meckel's cave and the root entry zone of the trigeminal nerve. Of 152 patients, 24 had TN caused solely by venous compression. The value of Y was significantly smaller in the venous group than the arterial group (P < 0.01). The trigeminal nerve and pons was significantly smaller in the venous group (P < 0.01). We hypothesized that TN patients with solely venous compression had a characteristic PCF morphology with a short anteroposterior diameter (Y), such that age-related changes in brain morphology could alter the course of the trigeminal nerve and cause compression by a vein. The morphological features of the PCF differed between patients with TN of venous and those with TN of arterial etiology. Age-related changes in brain morphology and changes of course of the trigeminal nerve may also add to the possibility of developing TN, especially of venous etiology.

Abnormality in Peripheral and Brain Iron Contents and the Relationship with Grey Matter Volumes in Major Depressive Disorder.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a prevalent mental illness globally, yet its etiology remains largely elusive. Recent interest in the scientific community has focused on the correlation between the disruption of iron homeostasis and MDD. Prior studies have revealed anomalous levels of iron in both peripheral blood and the brain of MDD patients; however, these findings are not consistent. This study involved 95 MDD patients aged 18-35 and 66 sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) who underwent 3D-T1 and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) sequence scans to assess grey matter volume (GMV) and brain iron concentration, respectively. Plasma ferritin (pF) levels were measured in a subset of 49 MDD individuals and 41 HCs using the Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), whose blood data were simultaneously collected. We hypothesize that morphological brain changes in MDD patients are related to abnormal regulation of iron levels in the brain and periphery. Multimodal canonical correlation analysis plus joint independent component analysis (MCCA+jICA) algorithm was mainly used to investigate the covariation patterns between the brain iron concentration and GMV. The results of "MCCA+jICA" showed that the QSM values in bilateral globus pallidus and caudate nucleus of MDD patients were lower than HCs. While in the bilateral thalamus and putamen, the QSM values in MDD patients were higher than in HCs. The GMV values of these brain regions showed a significant positive correlation with QSM. The GMV values of bilateral putamen were found to be increased in MDD patients compared with HCs. A small portion of the thalamus showed reduced GMV values in MDD patients compared to HCs. Furthermore, the region of interest (ROI)-based comparison results in the basal ganglia structures align with the outcomes obtained from the "MCCA+jICA" analysis. The ELISA results indicated that the levels of pF in MDD patients were higher than those in HCs. Correlation analysis revealed that the increase in pF was positively correlated with the iron content in the left thalamus. Finally, the covariation patterns obtained from "MCCA+jICA" analysis as classification features effectively differentiated MDD patients from HCs in the support vector machine (SVM) model. Our findings indicate that elevated peripheral ferritin in MDD patients may disrupt the normal metabolism of iron in the brain, leading to abnormal changes in brain iron levels and GMV.

Effects of maternal age and environmental enrichment on learning ability and brain size.

It is well known that maternal age at reproduction affects offspring lifespan and some other fitness-related traits, but it remains understudied whether maternal senescence affects how offspring respond to their environments. Early environment often plays a significant role in the development of an animal's behavioral phenotype. For example, complex environments can promote changes in cognitive ability and brain morphology in young animals. Here, we study whether and how maternal effect senescence influences offspring plasticity in cognition, group behavior, and brain morphology in response to environmental complexity. For this, juvenile 3-spined sticklebacks from young and old mothers (i.e. 1-yr and 2-yr-old) were exposed to different levels of environmental enrichment and complexity (i.e. none, simple, and complex), and their behavior, cognitive ability, and brain size were measured. Exposing fish to enriched conditions improved individual learning ability assessed by a repeated detour-reaching task, increased the size of the whole brain, and decreased aggressive interactions in the shoal. Maternal age did not influence the inhibitory control, learning ability, and group behavioral responses of offspring to the experimental environmental change. However, maternal age affected how some brain regions of offspring changed in response to environmental complexity. In offspring from old mothers, those exposed to the complex environment had larger telencephalons and cerebellums than those who experienced simpler environments. Our results suggest that maternal effect senescence may influence how offspring invest in brain functions related to cognition in response to environmental complexity.

Long-term cognitive and brain morphologic changes in chronic heart failure: Results of the Cognition.Matters-HF study.

Cognitive impairment (CI) is a common, yet frequently unrecognized co-morbidity in chronic heart failure (HF). We quantified trajectories of cognitive performance, brain volume, and related clinical outcome over a time course of 6years. The Cognition.Matters-HF cohort study recruited patients with stable HF of any aetiology and severity. Beyond cardiological assessment, the workup included cognitive testing and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Of 148 recruited patients, 70% exhibited CI at baseline. During the median follow-up time of 69months (quartiles: 68, 70), indicators of HF severity remained essentially unaltered. CI was also stable, with the exception of intensity of attention, where age-adjusted t-scores decreased from 42 (38, 46) to 38 (34, 44; P<0.001). Complete sets of four serial brain MRI scans were available in 47 patients (32% of total sample). Total brain volume shrank by 0.4% per year, from 1103 (1060, 1143) cm3 to 1078 (1027, 1117) cm3, which was within limits observed in non-diseased ageing individuals. During follow-up, 29 study participants (20%) died, and 26 (18%) were at least once hospitalized due to worsening HF. The presence of CI was not associated with overall (P=0.290) or hospitalization-free (P=0.450) survival. In patients with stable HF patients receiving guideline-directed pharmacologic treatment and regular medical care, the presence of CI did not affect overall and hospitalization-free 6-year survival. The loss of brain parenchyma observed in patients with stable HF did not exceed that of normal ageing.

Relative telencephalon size does not affect collective motion in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata).

Collective motion is common across all animal taxa, from swarming insects to schools of fish. The collective motion requires intricate behavioral integration among individuals, yet little is known about how evolutionary changes in brain morphology influence the ability for individuals to coordinate behavior in groups. In this study, we utilized guppies that were selectively bred for relative telencephalon size, an aspect of brain morphology that is normally associated with advanced cognitive functions, to examine its role in collective motion using an open-field assay. We analyzed high-resolution tracking data of same-sex shoals consisting of 8 individuals to assess different aspects of collective motion, such as alignment, attraction to nearby shoal members, and swimming speed. Our findings indicate that variation in collective motion in guppy shoals might not be strongly affected by variation in relative telencephalon size. Our study suggests that group dynamics in collectively moving animals are likely not driven by advanced cognitive functions but rather by fundamental cognitive processes stemming from relatively simple rules among neighboring individuals.

Brain morphological changes and functional neuroanatomy related to cognitive and emotional distractors during working memory maintenance in post-traumatic stress disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with abnormalities in the processing and regulation of emotion as well as cognitive deficits. This study evaluated the differential brain activation patterns associated with cognitive and emotional distractors during working memory (WM) maintenance for human faces between patients with PTSD and healthy controls (HCs) and assessed the relationship between changes in the activation patterns by the opposing effects of distraction types and gray matter volume (GMV). Twenty-two patients with PTSD and twenty-two HCs underwent T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and event-related functional MRI (fMRI), respectively. Event-related fMRI data were recorded while subjects performed a delayed-response WM task with human face and trauma-related distractors. Compared to the HCs, the patients with PTSD showed significantly reduced GMV of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) (p < 0.05, FWE-corrected). For the human face distractor trial, the patients showed significantly decreased activities in the superior frontal gyrus and IFG compared with HCs (p < 0.05, FWE-corrected). The patients showed lower accuracy scores and slower reaction times for the face recognition task with trauma-related distractors compared with HCs as well as significantly increased brain activity in the STG during the trauma-related distractor trial was observed (p < 0.05, FWE-corrected). Such differential brain activation patterns associated with the effects of distraction in PTSD patients may be linked to neural mechanisms associated with impairments in both cognitive control for confusable distractors and the ability to control emotional distraction.

Association Between Serum NT-proBNP and Gray Matter Atrophy Patterns in an Older Japanese Population: The Hisayama Study.

Several population-based studies have reported that higher serum N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) levels are associated with brain morphological changes. However, no population-based studies have examined the relationship between serum NT-proBNP and various regional brain volumes in detail. We here analyzed the brain MRI data of 1201 community-dwelling Japanese aged ≥65 years. Regional gray matter volumes (GMV) and intracranial volume (ICV) were estimated by applying voxel-based morphometry (VBM) methods. The associations of serum NT-proBNP with regional GMV/ICV were examined by analysis of covariance. The regional gray matter atrophy patterns associated with elevated serum NT-proBNP levels were investigated using VBM without a priori regions of interest. The multivariable-adjusted means of the frontal, temporal, hippocampal, parahippocampal, and entorhinal GMV/ICV decreased significantly with elevated serum NT-proBNP levels (all p for trend and q values of false discovery rate correction < .05). In VBM, elevated serum NT-proBNP levels were correlated with atrophy of the bilateral hippocampi, bilateral amygdalas, bilateral parahippocampal gyri, bilateral entorhinal areas, bilateral fusiform gyri, left middle temporal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, right central operculum, right posterior orbital gyrus, bilateral middle frontal gyri, anterior cingulate gyrus and bilateral medial frontal cortices. In a sensitivity analysis excluding 254 participants with mild cognitive impairment or dementia, serum NT-proBNP levels were correlated with atrophy of the bilateral hippocampi, bilateral amygdalas, bilateral parahippocampal gyri, bilateral fusiform gyri, and left middle frontal gyrus. Our data suggest that elevated serum NT-proBNP levels are associated with gray matter atrophy in brain regions that play an important role in cognitive function.