Symptoms Do Not Predict White Matter Injury in the Watershed Regions in Children with Moyamoya.

Objective: To assess whether white matter injuries differ in symptomatic vs asymptomatic moyamoya-affected hemispheres using diffusion magnetic resonance imaging since there is controversy regarding when or if to revascularize children with asymptomatic moyamoya.

Study Design: We conducted a cross-sectional study of children with moyamoya who underwent diffusion magnetic resonance imaging before revascularization surgery as well as controls without moyamoya. We measured the fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity of white matter tracts in the watershed regions.

Blink-related arousal network surges are shaped by cortical vigilance states.

The vigilance state and the excitability of cortical networks impose wide-range effects on brain dynamics that arousal surges could promptly modify. We previously reported an association between spontaneous eye-blinks and BOLD activation in the brain arousal ascending network (AAN) and in thalamic nuclei based on 3T MR resting state brain images. Here we aimed to replicate our analyses using 7T MR images in a larger cohort of participants collected from the Human Connectome Project (HCP), which also contained simultaneous eye-tracking recordings, and to assess the interaction between the blink-associated arousal surges and the vigilance states.

Neuroimaging in Adolescents: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Risk for Substance Use Disorders.

Trauma in childhood and adolescence has long-term negative consequences in brain development and behavior and increases the risk for psychiatric disorders. Among them, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) during adolescence illustrates the connection between trauma and substance misuse, as adolescents may utilize substances to cope with PTSD. Drug misuse may in turn lead to neuroadaptations in learning processes that facilitate the consolidation of traumatic memories that perpetuate PTSD.