Biomarkers of major depressive disorder (MDD) have remained elusive even though such markers would allow for the objective diagnosis and monitoring of treatment efficacy. Results of univariate statistical analysis to differentiate case-controlled subjects from depressed subjects, though statistically significant, leave much overlap between groups, limiting the potential of univariate statistics. Principle compoent analysis (PCA) of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) data shows that multivariate statistics provides a clear distinction between bipolar subjects and healthy volunteers. Exp. Design: MRS and MRI morphometirc measurements @1.5T were obtained from 7 BD patients, and 7 age-matched healthy volunteers. MRS yielded absolute concentrations of N-acetyl aspartate, choline, creatine, and myo-inositol. MRI was used to measure left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), caudate nuclei, thalamus, and amygdala volumes. PCA of the above variables is shown in the figure: PC1 vs. ...

Brain development during late childhood and adolescence is characterized by decreases in gray matter (GM) and increases in white matter (WM) and ventricular volume. The dynamic nature of development across different structures is, however, not well understood, and the present magnetic resonance imaging study took advantage of a whole-brain segmentation approach to describe the developmental trajectories of 16 neuroanatomical volumes in the same sample of children, adolescents, and young adults ( n = 171; range, 8–30 years). The cerebral cortex, cerebral WM, caudate, putamen, pallidum, accumbens area, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, brainstem, cerebellar GM, cerebellar WM, lateral ventricles, inferior lateral ventricles, third ventricle, and fourth ventricle were studied. The cerebral cortex was further analyzed in terms of lobar thickness and surface area. The results revealed substantial heterogeneity in developmental trajectories. GM decreased nonlinearly in the cerebral cortex and linearly in the cauda...

Read the five JNeurosci research papers published in May 2019 that generated the most online discussion, as measured by Altmetric.

People typically drink alcohol to induce euphoria or reduce anxiety, and they frequently drink in social settings, yet the effect of alcohol on human brain circuits involved in reward and emotion has been explored only sparingly. We administered alcohol intravenously to social drinkers while brain response to visual threatening and nonthreatening facial stimuli was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Alcohol robustly activated striatal reward circuits while attenuating response to fearful stimuli in visual and limbic regions. Self-ratings of intoxication correlated with striatal activation, suggesting that activation in this area may contribute to subjective experience of pleasure and reward during intoxication. These results show that the acute pharmacological rewarding and anxiolytic effects of alcohol can be measured with fMRI.

We present here novel findings using magnetization transfer (MT) contrast imaging for effective early diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as well as prediction of MCI progression to Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The goal of this study was to compare the sensitivity and specificity of two structural MRI measures of the hippocampus, volumetric analysis (H-V) and MT-ratio (H-MTR). For this purpose MRI acquired two years previously was evaluated for its predictive value of disease progression on follow-up. High resolution T1-weighted and MT-contrast images from time-1 scan of 27 MCI, 10 AD and 14 normal elderly (NE) subjects were manually segmented for hippocampus to determine the H-V and H-MTR. When clinical status of their condition was evaluated two years later, 9 of the MCI subjects had progressed (MCI-P) to AD while 18 remained stable (MCI-NP). Discriminant functional analysis showed that the sensitivity (81%) and specificity (53%) was same for both H-MTR and H-V in separating the NE from the MCI at ...

The intensity and spatial distribution of functional activation in the left precentral and postcentral gyri during actual motor performance (MP) and mental representation [motor imagery (MI)] of self-paced finger-to-thumb opposition movements of the dominant hand were investigated in fourteen right-handed volunteers by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques. Significant increases in mean normalized fMRI signal intensities over values obtained during the control (visual imagery) tasks were found in a region including the anterior bank and crown of the central sulcus, the presumed site of the primary motor cortex, during both MP (mean percentage increase, 2.1%) and MI (0.8%). In the anterior portion of the precentral gyrus and the postcentral gyrus, mean functional activity levels were also increased during both conditions (MP, 1.7 and 1.2%; MI, 0.6 and 0.4%, respectively). To locate activated foci during MI, MP, or both conditions, the time course of the signal intensities of pixels lying ...

Findings show how the pandemic altered young minds

Uncovering the biological basis of patient heterogeneity is a key to creating clinically-relevant biomarkers. Non-invasive imaging is enabling the visualization of the brain-to-symptom links underlying neurobehavioral disorders, but the technology is of...

The widespread use of mouse models in the neuroscience research demands a standard space for mapping the structural and functional patterns during brain development as well as under various pathological conditions. Here we report an MRI-based high-resol...

To circumvent the limitations of using postmortem brain in molecular assays, we used avidin–biotin binding to couple superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) (15–20 nm) to phosphorothioate-modified oligodeoxynucleotides (sODNs) with sequence complementary to c- fos and β- actin mRNA (SPION-cfos and SPION-βactin, respectively) (14–22 nm). The Stern–Volmer constant for the complex of SPION and fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-sODN is 3.1 × 106/m. We studied the feasibility of using the conjugates for in vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to monitor gene transcription, and demonstrated that these complexes at 40 μg of Fe per kilogram of body weight were retained at least 1 d after intracerebroventricular infusion into the left ventricle of C57Black6 mice. SPION retention measured by MRI as T2* or R2* maps (R2* = 1/T2*) was compared with histology of iron oxide (Prussian blue) and FITC-labeled sODN. We observed significant reduction in magnetic resonance (MR) T2* signal in the right cortex and s...