Gender Differences in Frontotemporal Dementia: Clinical, Brain Structural, White Matter Hyperintensity, and Brain Metabolic Features.

Background: Gender is a factor influencing the clinical and radiological heterogeneity in dementia. However, gender differences in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are still underexplored. This study aims to investigate the gender heterogeneity in FTD patients and its association with clinical and imaging features.

Characteristics of brain topological networks in posterior cortical atrophy: a hybrid FDG PET/MRI study.

Background: Graph theory is an advanced method for analyzing the balance of brain networks. However, the changes in white matter (WM) and metabolic networks and their correlation with clinical features in patients with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) require further investigation. This study aims to clarify the structural, metabolic, WM, and metabolic topological network in PCA, and explore their correlation with clinical features.

Impact of cognitive impairment on heart failure prognosis: insights into central nervous system mechanism.

Background: Epidemiological studies have indicated that patients with heart failure (HF) who experience cognitive impairment (CI) have a poor prognosis. While poor self-management and compliance are suggested as contributing factors, they do not fully explain the underlying mechanisms of high risk of cardiac events in HF patients with CI. Given the interconnectedness of CI and the autonomic nervous system (ANS), both regulated by the central nervous system, this study investigated the relationship among cognitive function, metabolism in ANS-related brain regions, and major arrhythmic events (MAEs) in patients with HF with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF).

Expression of microRNA induced by postoperative delirium-like behavior is associated with long-term default mode network disruption: Sequencing and a secondary analysis of resting-state fMRI data.

Aims: Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) has been widely used in studying default mode network (DMN) changes in postoperative delirium (POD). Reproducibility and interpretability of the analyzing results remain insufficiently studied.

Methods: Delirium-like behavior was induced by tibial fixation surgery under isoflurane anesthesia.

High throughput mRNA sequencing reveals potential therapeutic targets of Si-Ni-San in the pons for a stress-induced depression model.

Background: An accumulating body of research indicates that the pons is related to the occurrence of depression. Si-Ni-San (SNS) is a well-known Chinese herbal formula that is used to treat depression. Chinese herbal formulae have multiple therapeutic characteristics.

Exploring cerebral structural and functional abnormalities in a mouse model of post-traumatic headache induced by mild traumatic brain injury.

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)-induced post-traumatic headache (PTH) is a pressing public health concern and leading cause of disability worldwide. Although PTH is often accompanied by neurological disorders, the exact underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. Identifying potential biomarkers may prompt the diagnosis and development of effective treatments for mTBI-induced PTH.

Three-phase Enriched Environment Improves Post-stroke Gait Dysfunction via Facilitating Neuronal Plasticity in the Bilateral Sensorimotor Cortex: A Multimodal MRI/PET Analysis in Rats.

The three-phase Enriched Environment (EE) paradigm has been shown to promote post-stroke functional improvement, but the neuronal mechanisms are still unclear. In this study, we applied a multimodal neuroimaging protocol combining magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) to examine the effects of post-ischemic EE treatment on structural and functional neuroplasticity in the bilateral sensorimotor cortex. Rats were subjected to permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion.

Combination of fMRI and PET reveals the beneficial effect of three-phase enriched environment on post-stroke memory deficits by enhancing plasticity of brain connectivity between hippocampus and peri-hippocampal cortex.

Aim: The three-phase enriched environment (EE) intervention paradigm has been shown to improve learning and memory function after cerebral ischemia, but the neuronal mechanisms are still unclear. This study aimed to investigate the hippocampal-cortical connectivity and the metabolic interactions between neurons and astrocytes to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of EE-induced memory improvement after stroke.

Methods: Rats were subjected to permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO) or sham surgery and housed in standard environment or EE for 30 days.

Equilibrium Dynamics of Mutually Confined Waves with Signed Analogous Masses.

We report the first experimental realization of equilibrium dynamics of mutually confined waves with signed analogous masses in an optical fiber. Our Letter is mainly demonstrated by considering a mutual confinement between a soliton pair and a dispersive wave experiencing opposite dispersion. The resulting wave-packet complex is found robust upon random perturbation and collision with other waves.

Dopaminergic damage pattern predicts phenoconversion time in isolated rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder.

Purpose: The exact phenoconversion time from isolated rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) to synucleinopathies remains unpredictable. This study investigated whole-brain dopaminergic damage pattern (DDP) with disease progression and predicted phenoconversion time in individual patients.

Methods: Age-matched 33 iRBD patients and 20 healthy controls with C-CFT-PET scans were enrolled.

Automatic brain extraction for rat magnetic resonance imaging data using U-Net.

Skull stripping is a key step in the pre-processing of rodent brain magnetic resonance images (MRI). This study aimed to develop a new skull stripping method via U-Net, a neural network model based on deep learning method, for rat brain MRI.In this study, 599 rats were enrolled and U-Net was applied to segment MRI images of rat brain.

Association between gene expression and functional-metabolic architecture in Parkinson's disease.

Gene expression plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). How gene expression profiles are correlated with functional-metabolic architecture remains obscure. We enrolled 34 PD patients and 25 age-and-sex-matched healthy controls for simultaneous F-FDG-PET/functional MRI scanning during resting state.

Sleep deprivation aggravated amyloid β oligomers-induced damage to the cerebellum of rats: Evidence from magnetic resonance imaging.

For quite a long time, researches on Alzheimer's disease (AD) primarily focused on the cortex and hippocampus, while the cerebellum has been ignored because of its abnormalities considered to appear in the late stage of AD. In recent years, increasing evidence suggest that the cerebellar pathological changes possibly occur in the preclinical phase of AD, which is also associated with sleep disorder. Sleep disturbance is a high risk factor of AD.

Disrupted Topological Organization of Brain Network in Rats with Spatial Memory Impairments Induced by Acute Microwave Radiation.

Previous studies have suggested that microwave (MW) radiation with certain parameters can induce spatial memory deficits. However, the effect of MW on the topological organization of the brain network is still unknown. This work aimed to investigate the topological organization of the brain network in rats with spatial memory impairments induced by acute microwave (MW) radiation.

Harmonizing T1-Weighted Images to Improve Consistency of Brain Morphology Among Different Scanner Manufacturers in Alzheimer's disease.

Background: Brain MRI scanner variability can introduce bias in measurements. Harmonizing scanner variability is crucial.

Purpose: To develop a harmonization method aimed at removing scanner variability, and to evaluate the consistency of results in multicenter studies.

IRE1α: from the function to the potential therapeutic target in atherosclerosis.

Inositol requiring enzyme 1 (IRE1) is generally thought to control the most conserved pathway in the unfolded protein response (UPR). Two isoforms of IRE1, IRE1α and IRE1β, have been reported in mammals. IRE1α is a ubiquitously expressed protein whose knockout shows marked lethality.

Overexpression of ameliorates sleep deprivation induced-cognitive impairment by modulating glutamatergic neuron function.

Sleep benefits the restoration of energy metabolism and thereby supports neuronal plasticity and cognitive behaviors. Sirt6 is a NAD-dependent protein deacetylase that has been recognized as an essential regulator of energy metabolism because it modulates various transcriptional regulators and metabolic enzymes. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of Sirt6 on cerebral function after chronic sleep deprivation (CSD).

Metabolic Asymmetry Relates to Clinical Characteristics and Brain Network Abnormalities in Alzheimer's Disease.

Background: Metabolic asymmetry has been observed in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but different studies have inconsistent viewpoints.

Objective: To analyze the asymmetry of cerebral glucose metabolism in AD and investigate its clinical significance and potential metabolic network abnormalities.

Methods: Standardized uptake value ratios (SUVRs) were obtained from 18F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET) images of all participants, and the asymmetry indices (AIs) were calculated according to the SUVRs.

Altered Anterior Insular Metabolic Connectivity in Asymptomatic MAPT P301L Carriers.

Background: The insula is the predominant brain region impaired in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD). However, structural and functional changes in the sub-insula in the asymptomatic stage of bvFTD are unknown.

Objective: To describe structural and functional changes in insula subregions in asymptomatic carriers of the P301L mutation of the microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) gene and patients with bvFTD.

Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Imaging With Comprehensive Assessment of Prostate Volume, Morphology, and Composition Better Reflects the Correlation With International Prostate Symptom Score.

Objective: To investigate the application of multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mp-MRI) for comprehensive evaluation of the correlation between the characteristics of the transitional zone and the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

Materials And Methods: We retrospectively recruited 210 patients with biopsy-proven BPH who underwent preoperative mp-MRI and were assigned an IPSS. The evaluation indicators included prostate volumetric parameters (total prostate volume [TPV], transition zone volume [TZV], and transition zone index [TZI, TZI=TZV/TPV]), prostate morphological parameters (intravesical prostatic protrusion, and presumed circle area ratio) and prostate compositional parameters (apparent diffusion coefficient [ADC], and mean signal intensity of T2WI [mean-SI-T2WI]).