An empirical analysis of structural neuroimaging profiles in a staging model of depression.

We examine structural brain characteristics across three diagnostic categories: at risk for serious mental illness; first-presenting episode and recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD). We investigate whether the three diagnostic groups display a stepwise pattern of brain changes in the cortico-limbic regions. Integrated clinical and neuroimaging data from three large Canadian studies were pooled (total n = 622 participants, aged 12-66 years).

Fully automatic segmentation of brain lacunas resulting from resective surgery using a 3D deep learning model.

The rapid and constant development of deep learning (DL) strategies is pushing forward the quality of object segmentation in images from diverse fields of interest. In particular, these algorithms can be very helpful in delineating brain abnormalities (lesions, tumors, lacunas, etc), enabling the extraction of information such as volume and location, that can inform doctors or feed predictive models. Here, we describe ResectVol DL, a fully automatic tool developed to segment resective lacunas in brain images of patients with epilepsy.

Graph analysis of cortical reorganization after virtual reality-based rehabilitation following stroke: a pilot randomized study.

Introduction: Stroke is the leading cause of functional disability worldwide. With the increase of the global population, motor rehabilitation of stroke survivors is of ever-increasing importance. In the last decade, virtual reality (VR) technologies for rehabilitation have been extensively studied, to be used instead of or together with conventional treatments such as physiotherapy or occupational therapy.

Isometric tongue endurance and incomplete laryngeal vestibule closure in Parkinson's disease.

Background: Dysphagia is a common symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD). A delay in laryngeal vestibule closure (LVC) and a reduction in tongue pressure, may affect swallowing safety and increase the risk of pulmonary aspiration.

Objective: To verify the relationship between tongue pressure and airway protection in PD patients: (1) comparing tongue pressure measures and physiological events in the pharyngeal phase of swallowing between PD and controls and (2) analysing the association between tongue pressure and LVC in the PD group.

Whole-brain DTI parameters associated with tau protein and hippocampal volume in Alzheimer's disease.

The causes of the neurodegenerative processes in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are not completely known. Recent studies have shown that white matter (WM) damage could be more severe and widespread than whole-brain cortical atrophy and that such damage may appear even before the damage to the gray matter (GM). In AD, Amyloid-beta (Aβ ) and tau proteins could directly affect WM, spreading across brain networks.

Evaluating denoising strategies in resting-state functional magnetic resonance in traumatic brain injury (EpiBioS4Rx).

Resting-state functional MRI is increasingly used in the clinical setting and is now included in some diagnostic guidelines for severe brain injury patients. However, to ensure high-quality data, one should mitigate fMRI-related noise typical of this population. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the ability of different preprocessing strategies to mitigate noise-related signal (i.

Cerebello-limbic functional connectivity patterns in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis.

Youth at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis can present not only with characteristic attenuated psychotic symptoms but also may have other comorbid conditions, including anxiety and depression. These undifferentiated mood symptoms can overlap with the clinical presentation of youth with Distress syndromes. Increased resting-state functional connectivity within cerebello-thalamo-cortical (CTC) pathways has been proposed as a trait-specific biomarker for CHR.

Effects of virtual reality-based motor rehabilitation: a systematic review of fMRI studies.

The use of virtual reality (VR) as a rehabilitation tool has been shown to induce motor and cognitive improvements in different populations. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been used to investigate neuroplasticity resulting from these treatments. We hypothesize that VR rehabilitation induces functional improvement and brain changes that can be detected by fMRI.

ResectVol: A tool to automatically segment and characterize lacunas in brain images.

Objective: To assess and validate the performance of a new tool developed for segmenting and characterizing lacunas in postoperative MR images of epilepsy patients.

Methods: A MATLAB-based pipeline was implemented using SPM12 to produce the 3D mask of the surgical lacuna and estimate its volume. To validate its performance, we compared the manual and automatic lacuna segmentations obtained from 51 MRI scans of epilepsy patients who underwent temporal lobe resections.

Brain Damage and Gene Expression Across Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia Subtypes.

Background: Spinal cord has been considered the main target of damage in hereditary spastic paraplegias (HSPs), but mounting evidence indicates that the brain is also affected. Despite this, little is known about the brain signature of HSPs, in particular regarding stratification for specific genetic subtypes.

Objective: We aimed to characterize cerebral and cerebellar damage in five HSP subtypes (9 SPG3A, 27 SPG4, 10 SPG7, 9 SPG8, and 29 SPG11) and to uncover the clinical and gene expression correlates.

Spinal Cord Gray and White Matter Damage in Different Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia Subtypes.

Background And Purpose: Spinal cord damage is a hallmark of hereditary spastic paraplegias, but it is still not clear whether specific subtypes of the disease have distinctive patterns of spinal cord gray (GM) and white (WM) matter involvement. We compared cervical cross-sectional GM and WM areas in patients with distinct hereditary spastic paraplegia subtypes. We also assessed whether these metrics correlated with clinical parameters.

Subacute functional connectivity correlates with cognitive recovery six months after stroke.

Background And Purpose: Cognitive impairment is a common consequence of stroke, and the rewiring of the surviving brain circuits might contribute to cognitive recovery. Studies investigating how the functional connectivity of networks change across time and whether their remapping relates to cognitive recovery in stroke patients are scarce. We aimed to investigate whether resting-state functional connectivity was associated with cognitive performance in stroke patients and if any alterations in these networks were correlated with cognitive recovery.

Alzheimer's Disease Detection Through Whole-Brain 3D-CNN MRI.

The projected burden of dementia by Alzheimer's disease (AD) represents a looming healthcare crisis as the population of most countries grows older. Although there is currently no cure, it is possible to treat symptoms of dementia. Early diagnosis is paramount to the development and success of interventions, and neuroimaging represents one of the most promising areas for early detection of AD.

Interactions between in vivo neuronal-glial markers, side of hippocampal sclerosis, and pharmacoresponse in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Objective: To evaluate the interactions of metabolic neuronal-glial changes with the presence and hemispheric-side of hippocampal sclerosis (HS) and its potential role in predicting pharmacoresistance in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Methods: We included structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( H-MRS) metabolic data for 91 patients with unilateral TLE and 50 healthy controls. We measured the values of total N-acetyl aspartate/total creatine (tNAA/tCr), glutamate/tCr (Glu/tCr), and myo-inositol/tCr (mIns/tCr).

Selective sensory deafferentation induces structural and functional brain plasticity.

Sensory-motor integration models have been proposed aiming to explain how the brain uses sensory information to guide and check the planning and execution of movements. Sensory neuronopathy (SN) is a peculiar disease characterized by exclusive, severe and widespread sensory loss. It is a valuable condition to investigate how sensory deafferentation impacts brain organization.

Structural signature in SCA1: clinical correlates, determinants and natural history.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 is an autosomal dominant disorder caused by a CAG repeat expansion in ATXN1, characterized by progressive cerebellar and extracerebellar symptoms. MRI-based studies in SCA1 focused in the cerebellum and connections, but there are few data about supratentorial/spinal damage and its clinical relevance. We have thus designed this multimodal MRI study to uncover the structural signature of SCA1.

Cognitive Reserve Relates to Functional Network Efficiency in Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia, with no means of cure or prevention. The presence of abnormal disease-related proteins in the population is, in turn, much more common than the incidence of dementia. In this context, the cognitive reserve (CR) hypothesis has been proposed to explain the discontinuity between pathophysiological and clinical expression of AD, suggesting that CR mitigates the effects of pathology on clinical expression and cognition.

Sensory neuronopathy heralding human T cell lymphotropic virus type I myelopathy.

Neurological phenotypes of human T cell lymphotropic virus type I (HTLV-1) are numerous and rarely may not manifest the classic HTLV-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP). We report a case of HTLV-1-related sensory neuronopathy heralding the classic HAM/TSP.

Brain signature of mild stages of cognitive and behavioral impairment in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

We aimed to assess the brain signature of cognitive and behavioral impairment in C9orf72-negative non-demented ALS patients. The study included 50 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients (out of 75 initially recruited) and 38 healthy controls. High-resolution T1-weighted and spin-echo diffusion tensor images were acquired in a 3T MRI scanner.

Intranetwork and internetwork connectivity in patients with Alzheimer disease and the association with cerebrospinal fluid biomarker levels.

Background: In the last decade, many studies have reported abnormal connectivity within the default mode network (DMN) in patients with Alzheimer disease. Few studies, however, have investigated other networks and their association with pathophysiological proteins obtained from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Methods: We performed 3 T imaging in patients with mild Alzheimer disease, patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and healthy controls, and we collected CSF samples from the patients with aMCI and mild Alzheimer disease.

Derek Denny-Brown: the man behind the ganglia.

The authors present an historical review about the main contributions of Professor Derek Denny-Brown to neurology. Some of his achievements include the first description of sensory neuronopathies, and some of the essential textbooks on the function and anatomy of the basal ganglia. In 2016, on the 35th anniversary of his death, modern neurologists are still strongly influenced by his legacy.

Transcultural validation of the ALS-CBS Cognitive Section for the Brazilian population.

Cognitive decline (CD) is common but often under-recognized in ALS due to the scarcity of adequate cognitive screening methods. In this scenario, the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Cognitive Behavioural Screen (ALS-CBS) is the most investigated instrument and presents high sensitivity to identify CD. Currently, there are no validated cognitive screening tools for ALS patients in the Brazilian population and little is known about the frequency of ALS related CD in the country.

Brain Connectivity and Functional Recovery in Patients With Ischemic Stroke.

Background: Brain mapping studies have demonstrated that functional poststroke brain reorganization is associated with recovery of motor function. Nonetheless, the specific mechanisms associated with functional reorganization leading to motor recovery are still partly unknown. In this study, we performed a cross-sectional evaluation of poststroke subjects with the following goals: (1) To assess intra- and interhemispheric functional brain activation patterns associated with motor function in poststroke patients with variable degrees of recovery; (2) to investigate the involvement of other nonmotor functional networks in relationship with recovery.

Large-scale brain networks are distinctly affected in right and left mesial temporal lobe epilepsy.

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) with hippocampus sclerosis (HS) is associated with functional and structural alterations extending beyond the temporal regions and abnormal pattern of brain resting state networks (RSNs) connectivity. We hypothesized that the interaction of large-scale RSNs is differently affected in patients with right- and left-MTLE with HS compared to controls. We aimed to determine and characterize these alterations through the analysis of 12 RSNs, functionally parceled in 70 regions of interest (ROIs), from resting-state functional-MRIs of 99 subjects (52 controls, 26 right- and 21 left-MTLE patients with HS).