Longitudinal hippocampal subfields, CSF biomarkers, and cognition in patients with Parkinson disease.

Objective: Hippocampal atrophy is an indicator of emerging dementia in PD, though it is unclear whether cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) Abeta-42, t-tau, or alpha-syn predict hippocampal subfield atrophy in a cohort of PD patients. To examine whether levels of CSF alpha-synuclein (alpha-syn), beta-amyloid 1-42 (Abeta-42) or total-tau (t-tau) are associated with hippocampal subfield volumes over time.

Methods: We identified a subset of Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) PD patients with longitudinal T1-weighted imaging (baseline plus at least two additional visits across 12, 24, and 48 months) and CSF biomarkers available at baseline.

Subcortical correlates of individual differences in aptitude.

The study of individual differences encompasses broad constructs including intelligence, creativity, and personality. However, substantially less research is devoted to the study of specific aptitudes in spite of their importance to educational, occupational, and avocational success. We sought to determine subcortical brain structural correlates of several broad aptitudes including Math, Vocabulary, Foresight, Paper Folding, and Inductive Reasoning in a large (N = 107), healthy, young (age range  = 16-29) cohort.