scholarly journals Structural changes in secondary, but not primary, sensory cortex in individuals with congenital olfactory sensory loss

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moa G. Peter ◽  
Gustav Mårtensson ◽  
Elbrich M. Postma ◽  
Love Engström Nordin ◽  
Eric Westman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gray Matter ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Piriform Cortex ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Sensory Loss ◽  
Morphological Alterations ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Primary Sensory Cortex

ABSTRACTIndividuals with congenital sensory loss usually demonstrate altered brain morphology in areas associated with early processing of the lost sense. Here, we aimed to establish whether this also applies to individuals born without a sense of smell (congenital anosmia) by comparing cortical morphology between 33 individuals with isolated congenital anosmia and matched controls. We detected no structural alterations in the primary olfactory (piriform) cortex. However, individuals with anosmia demonstrated gray matter volume atrophy in bilateral olfactory sulci, explained by decreased cortical area, curvature, and sulcus depth. They further demonstrated increased gray matter volume and cortical thickness in the medial orbital gyri; regions closely associated with olfactory processing, sensory integration, and value-coding. Our results suggest that a lifelong absence of sensory input does not necessarily lead to morphological alterations in primary sensory cortex and extend previous findings with divergent morphological alterations in bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, indicating influences of different plastic processes.

scholarly journals Moderating Effect of Insulin Resistance on the Relationship between Gray Matter Volumes and Cognitive Function

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiyeon Lee ◽  
Jihyeon Kim ◽  
Seong Shin ◽  
Soowon Park ◽  
Dong Yoon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Insulin Resistance ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cognitive Function ◽  
Cognitive Decline ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Volume Loss ◽  
Matter Volume

Background: It is controversial whether exposure to insulin resistance accelerates cognitive deterioration. The present study aimed to investigate the association between insulin resistance and gray matter volume loss to predict the cognitive decline. Methods: We recruited 160 participants (78 with Alzheimer’s disease and 82 without Alzheimer’s disease). Insulin resistance, regional gray matter volume, and cognitive function were assessed. A hierarchical moderated multiple regression (MMR) model was used to determine any associations among insulin resistance, structural changes in the brain, and cognitive decline. Results: The volumes of 7 regions in the gray matter were negatively related to insulin resistance in Alzheimer’s disease (p =0.032). Hierarchical MMR analysis indicated that insulin resistance did not directly affect the cognitive decline but moderated the cognitive decline through the decrease in gray matter volume in the key brain regions, i.e., inferior orbitofrontal gyrus (left), middle cingulate gyrus (right), hippocampus (right), and precuneus (right) (p < 0.05 in each case). Conclusion: Insulin resistance appears to exacerbate the cognitive decline associated with several gray matter volume loss.

scholarly journals Attentional bias to threat and gray mater volume morphology in high anxious individuals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Carlson ◽  
Lin Fang
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
The Right

AbstractIn a sample of highly anxious individuals, the relationship between gray matter volume brain morphology and attentional bias to threat was assessed. Participants performed a dot-probe task of attentional bias to threat and gray matter volume was acquired from whole brain structural T1-weighted MRI scans. The results replicate previous findings in unselected samples that elevated attentional bias to threat is linked to greater gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, middle frontal gyrus, and striatum. In addition, we provide novel evidence that elevated attentional bias to threat is associated with greater gray matter volume in the right posterior parietal cortex, cerebellum, and other distributed regions. Lastly, exploratory analyses provide initial evidence that distinct sub-regions of the right posterior parietal cortex may contribute to attentional bias in a sex-specific manner. Our results illuminate how differences in gray matter volume morphology relate to attentional bias to threat in anxious individuals. This knowledge could inform neurocognitive models of anxiety-related attentional bias to threat and targets of neuroplasticity in anxiety interventions such as attention bias modification.

scholarly journals The Association between Gray Matter Volume and Reading Proficiency: A Longitudinal Study of Beginning Readers

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janosch Linkersdörfer ◽  
Alina Jurcoane ◽  
Sven Lindberg ◽  
Jochen Kaiser ◽  
Marcus Hasselhorn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reading Instruction ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Reading Proficiency ◽  
Superior Temporal Gyrus ◽  
Measurement Time ◽  
Cortical Volume ◽  
Matter Volume

Neural systems involved in the processing of written language have been identified by a number of functional imaging studies. Structural changes in cortical anatomy that occur in the course of literacy acquisition, however, remain largely unknown. Here, we follow elementary school children over their first 2 years of formal reading instruction and use tensor-based morphometry to relate reading proficiency to cortical volume at baseline and follow-up measurement as well as to intraindividual longitudinal volume development between the two measurement time points. A positive relationship was found between baseline gray matter volume in the left superior temporal gyrus and subsequent changes in reading proficiency. Furthermore, a negative relationship was found between reading proficiency at the second measurement time point and intraindividual cortical volume development in the inferior parietal lobule and the precentral and postcentral gyri of the left hemisphere. These results are interpreted as evidence that reading acquisition is associated with preexisting structural differences as well as with experience-dependent structural changes involving dendritic and synaptic pruning.

scholarly journals Altered Default Mode Network Is Associated With Cognitive Impairment in Cadasil as Revealed by Multimodal Neuroimaging

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Panlong Li ◽  
Qi Huang ◽  
Shiyu Ban ◽  
Yuan Qiao ◽  
Jing Wu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Default Mode Network ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Diffusion Tensor ◽  
Small Vessel Disease ◽  
Hippocampal Formation ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Matter Volume

Abstract Background: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) caused by mutations in NOTCH3 gene is a hereditary cerebral small vessel disease, manifesting with stroke, cognitive impairment and mood disturbances. Functional or structural changes in the default mode network (DMN), which plays important roles in cognitive and mental maintenance, have been found in a number of neurological and mental diseases. However, it is still unclear whether DMN is altered in CADASIL patients.Methods: Multimodal imaging methods, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), were applied to evaluate the functional, structural and metabolic characteristics of DMN in 25 CADASIL patients and 42 healthy controls.Results: Compared to controls, CADASIL patients had decreased nodal efficiency and degree centrality of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and hippocampal formation within DMN. Structural MRI and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) showed decreased gray matter volume and fiber tracks presented in the bilateral hippocampal formation. Meanwhile, PET imaging showed decreased metabolism within the whole DMN in CADASIL. Furthermore, correlation analyses showed that these nodal characteristics, gray matter volume, and metabolic signals of DMN were related to cognitive scores in CADASIL.Conclusions: Our results suggested that altered network characteristics of DMN may play important roles in cognitive deficits of CADASIL.

scholarly journals Sex, Sleep Deprivation, and the Anxious Brain

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-578 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea N. Goldstein-Piekarski ◽  
Stephanie M. Greer ◽  
Jared M. Saletin ◽  
Allison G. Harvey ◽  
Leanne M. Williams ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gray Matter ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Sleep Loss ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Mechanistic Pathway ◽  
High Discrimination ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
Healthy Participants ◽  
Anxiety Vulnerability

Insufficient sleep is a known trigger of anxiety. Nevertheless, not everyone experiences these effects to the same extent. One determining factor is sex, wherein women experience a greater anxiogenic impact in response to sleep loss than men. However, the underlying brain mechanism(s) governing this sleep-loss-induced anxiety increase, including the markedly different reaction in women and men, is unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that structural brain morphology in a discrete network of emotion-relevant regions represents one such explanatory factor. Healthy participants were assessed across sleep-rested and sleep-deprived conditions, with brain structure quantified using gray matter volume measures. Sleep loss triggered greater levels of anxiety in women compared with men. Reduced gray matter volume in the anterior insula and lateral orbitofrontal cortex predicted the anxiogenic impact of sleep loss in women, yet predicted resilience in men, and did so with high discrimination accuracy. In contrast, gray matter volume in ventromedial prefrontal cortex predicted the anxiogenic impact of sleep loss in both men and women. Structural human brain morphology therefore appears to represent one mechanistic pathway (and possible biomarker) determining anxiety vulnerability to sleep loss—a discovery that may help explain the higher prevalence of sleep disruption and anxiety in women.

scholarly journals Neuromorphological changes following selection for tameness and aggression in the Russian fox-farm experiment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin E. Hecht ◽  
Anna Kukekova ◽  
David A. Gutman ◽  
Greg Acland ◽  
Todd M. Preuss ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gray Matter ◽  
Brain Volume ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Aggressive Response ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Controlled Study ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Selection For ◽  
Dog Domestication

AbstractThe Russian fox-farm experiment is an unusually long-running and well-controlled study designed to replicate wolf-to-dog domestication. As such, it offers an unprecedented window onto the neural mechanisms governing the evolution of behavior. Here we report adaptations to gray matter morphology resulting from selection for tameness vs. aggressive response toward humans. Contrasting with prior work in other domesticated species, tame foxes did not show reduced brain volume. Rather, gray matter volume in both the tame and aggressive strains was increased relative to foxes bred without selection on behavior. Furthermore, tame- and aggressive-enlarged regions overlapped substantially, including portions of motor, somatosensory, and prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and cerebellum. We also observed differential morphological covariation across distributed gray matter networks. In one prefrontal-hypothalamic network, this covariation differentiated the tame and aggressive foxes together from the conventional strain. These findings indicate that selection for opposite behaviors can influence brain morphology in a similar way.

scholarly journals Functional Activation-Informed Structural Changes during Stroke Recovery: A Longitudinal MRI Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Zhiyuan Wu ◽  
Lin Cheng ◽  
Guo-Yuan Yang ◽  
Shanbao Tong ◽  
Junfeng Sun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gray Matter ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Structural Information ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Stroke Recovery ◽  
Functional Reorganization ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Initial Stage ◽  
Mri Study

Objective. Neuroimaging studies revealed the functional reorganization or the structural changes during stroke recovery. However, previous studies did not combine the functional and structural information and the results might be affected by heterogeneous lesion. This study aimed to investigate functional activation-informed structural changes during stroke recovery. Methods. MRI data of twelve stroke patients were collected at four consecutive time points during the first 3 months after stroke onset. Functional activation during finger-tapping task was used to inform the analysis of structural changes of activated brain regions. Correlation between structural changes in motor-related activated brain regions and motor function recovery was estimated. Results. The averaged gray matter volume (aGMV) of contralesional activated brain regions and laterality index of gray matter volume (LIGMV) increased during stroke recovery, and LIGMV was positively correlated with Fugl-Meyer Index (FMI) at initial stage after stroke. The aGMV of bilateral activated brain regions was negatively correlated with FMI during the stroke recovery. Conclusion. This study demonstrated that combining the stroke-induced functional reorganization and structural change provided new insights into the underlying innate plasticity process during stroke recovery. Significance. This study proposed a new approach to integrate functional and structural information for investigating the innate plasticity after stroke.

scholarly journals Evolution of Brain Morphology in Spontaneously Hypertensive and Wistar-Kyoto Rats From Early Adulthood to Aging: A Longitudinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yingying Yang ◽  
Quan Zhang ◽  
Jialiang Ren ◽  
Qingfeng Zhu ◽  
Lixin Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Spontaneously Hypertensive ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Septal Region ◽  
Accumbens Nucleus ◽  
Wistar Kyoto

The influence of hypertension and aging alone on brain structure has been described extensively. Our understanding of the interaction of hypertension with aging to brain morphology is still limited. We aimed to detect the synergistic effects of hypertension and aging on brain morphology and to describe the evolution patterns of cerebral atrophy from spatial and temporal perspectives. In 8 spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and 5 Wistar-Kyoto rats, high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scans were longitudinally acquired at 10, 24, 52, and 80 weeks. We analyzed the tissue volumes of gray matter, white matter, cerebral spinal fluid, and total intracranial volume (TIV), and then evaluated gray matter volume in detail using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and region of interest-based methods. There were interactive effects on hypertension and aging in tissue volumes of gray matter, white matter, and TIV, of which gray matter atrophy was most pronounced, especially in elderly SHRs. We identified the vulnerable gray matter volume with combined effects of hypertension and aging in the septal region, bilateral caudate putamen, hippocampus, primary somatosensory cortex, cerebellum, periaqueductal gray, right accumbens nucleus, and thalamus. We automatically extracted the septal region, anterior cingulate cortex, primary somatosensory cortex, caudate putamen, hippocampus, and accumbens nucleus and revealed an inverted-U trajectory of volume change in SHRs, with volume increase at the early phase and decline at the late phase. Hypertension interacts with aging to affect brain volume changes such as severe atrophy in elderly SHRs.

scholarly journals Linking lysosomal enzyme targeting genes and energy metabolism with altered gray matter volume in children with persistent stuttering

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ho Ming Chow ◽  
Emily O. Garnett ◽  
Hua Li ◽  
Andrew Etchell ◽  
Jorge Sepulcre ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Neurodevelopmental Disorder ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Expression Patterns ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Energy Utilization ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Heritable Disorder

AbstractDevelopmental stuttering is a childhood onset neurodevelopmental disorder with an unclear etiology. Subtle changes in brain structure and function are present in both children and adults who stutter. It is a highly heritable disorder, and up to 12-20% of stuttering cases may carry a mutation in one of four genes involved in mannose-6-phosphate mediated protein intracellular trafficking. To better understand the relationship between genetic factors and brain structural changes, we used gene expression data from the Allen Institute for Brain Science (AIBS) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to investigate the spatial correspondence between gene expression patterns and differences in gray matter volume (GMV) between children with persistent stuttering (n=26, 87 scans) and their fluent peers (n=44, 139 scans). We found that expression patterns of two stuttering-related genes (GNPTG and NAGPA) in the brain exhibit a strong positive spatial correlation with the magnitude of GMV differences between groups. Further gene set enrichment analyses revealed that genes whose expression was highly correlated with the GMV differences were enriched for glycolysis and oxidative metabolism in mitochondria. Although the results are correlational and cannot inform us about underlying casual mechanisms, our results suggest a possibility that regions with high expression level of genes associated with stuttering may be particularly vulnerable to the effect of alterations in these genes. This effect may be further exacerbated by the relatively high energy utilization in those brain during the period of a sharp increase in brain energy utilization, which coincides with a period of rapid language development and the onset of stuttering during childhood.

scholarly journals Childhood trauma is associated with reduced frontal gray matter volume: a large transdiagnostic structural MRI study

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Marieke J. H. Begemann ◽  
Maya J. L. Schutte ◽  
Edwin van Dellen ◽  
Lucija Abramovic ◽  
Marco P. Boks ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Trauma ◽  
Gray Matter ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Psychiatric Morbidity ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Morphology ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ◽  
Matter Volume ◽  
Schizophrenia Spectrum

Abstract Background Childhood trauma increases risk for psychopathology and cognitive impairment. Prior research mainly focused on the hippocampus and amygdala in single diagnostic categories. However, other brain regions may be impacted by trauma as well, and effects may be independent of diagnosis. This cross-sectional study investigated cortical and subcortical gray matter volume in relation to childhood trauma severity. Methods We included 554 participants: 250 bipolar-I patients, 84 schizophrenia-spectrum patients and 220 healthy individuals without a psychiatric history. Participants filled in the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Anatomical T1 MRI scans were acquired at 3T, regional brain morphology was assessed using Freesurfer. Results In the total sample, trauma-related gray matter reductions were found in the frontal lobe (β = −0.049, p = 0.008; q = 0.048), this effect was driven by the right medial orbitofrontal, paracentral, superior frontal regions and the left precentral region. No trauma-related volume reductions were observed in any other (sub)cortical lobes nor the hippocampus or amygdala, trauma-by-group (i.e. both patient groups and healthy subjects) interaction effects were absent. A categorical approach confirmed a pattern of more pronounced frontal gray matter reductions in individuals reporting multiple forms of trauma and across quartiles of cumulative trauma scores. Similar dose−response patterns were revealed within the bipolar and healthy subgroups, but did not reach significance in schizophrenia-spectrum patients. Conclusions Findings show that childhood trauma is linked to frontal gray matter reductions, independent of psychiatric morbidity. Our results indicate that childhood trauma importantly contributes to the neurobiological changes commonly observed across psychiatric disorders. Frontal volume alterations may underpin affective and cognitive disturbances observed in trauma-exposed individuals.

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