Healthy brain aging involves changes in both brain structure and function, including alterations in cellular composition and microstructure across brain regions. Unlike diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI), diffusion-weighted MR spectroscopy (dMRS) can assess cell-type specific microstructural changes, providing indirect information on both cell composition and microstructure through the quantification and interpretation of metabolites' diffusion properties. This work investigates age-related changes in the higher-order diffusion properties of total N-Acetyl-aspartate (neuronal biomarker), total choline (glial biomarker), and total creatine (both neuronal and glial biomarker) beyond the classical apparent diffusion coefficient in cerebral and cerebellar gray matter of healthy human brain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCerebellar functional and structural connectivity are likely related to motor function after stroke. Less is known about motor recovery, which is defined as a gain of function between two time points, and about the involvement of the cerebellum. Fifteen patients who were hospitalized between 2018 and 2020 for a first cerebral ischemic event with persistent upper limb deficits were assessed by resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) and clinical motor score measurements at 3, 9 and 15 weeks after stroke.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPsychiatric symptoms are common in neurodevelopmental movement disorders, including some types of dystonia. However, research has mainly focused on motor manifestations and underlying circuits. Myoclonus-dystonia is a rare and homogeneous neurodevelopmental condition serving as an illustrative paradigm of childhood-onset dystonias, associated with psychiatric symptoms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Physical activity combined with virtual reality and exergaming has emerged as a new technique to improve engagement and provide clinical benefit for gait and balance disorders in people with Parkinson's disease (PD).
Objective: To investigate the effects of a training protocol using a home-based exergaming system on brain volume and resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) in persons with PD.
Methods: A single blind randomized controlled trial was conducted in people with PD with gait and/or balance disorders.