Affective brain patterns as multivariate neural correlates of cardiovascular disease risk.

This study tested whether brain activity patterns evoked by affective stimuli relate to individual differences in an indicator of pre-clinical atherosclerosis: carotid artery intima-media thickness (CA-IMT). Adults (aged 30-54 years) completed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tasks that involved viewing three sets of affective stimuli. Two sets included facial expressions of emotion, and one set included neutral and unpleasant images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS).

Associations of immunometabolic risk factors with symptoms of depression and anxiety: The role of cardiac vagal activity.

Objectives: This study examined 1) the cross-sectional relationships between symptoms of depression/anxiety and immunometabolic risk factors, and 2) whether these relationships might be explained in part by cardiac vagal activity.

Methods: Data were drawn from the Adult Health and Behavior registries (n = 1785), comprised of community dwelling adults (52.8% women, aged 30-54).

Socioeconomic Position and Age-Related Disparities in Regional Cerebral Blood Flow Within the Prefrontal Cortex.

Objective: Socioeconomic position (SEP) is associated with cerebrovascular health and brain function, particularly in prefrontal cortex and medial temporal lobe regions that exhibit plasticity across the life course. However, it is unknown whether SEP associates with resting cerebral blood flow (CBF), an indicator of baseline brain function, in these regions in midlife, and whether the association is (a) period specific, with independent associations for childhood and adulthood SEP, or driven by life course SEP, and (b) explained by a persistent disparity, widening disparity, or the leveling of disparities with age.

Methods: To address these questions, we analyzed cerebral perfusion derived by magnetic resonance imaging in a cross-sectional study of healthy adults (N = 443) who reported on childhood and adult SEP.

Systemic inflammation and resting state connectivity of the default mode network.

The default mode network (DMN) encompasses brain systems that exhibit coherent neural activity at rest. DMN brain systems have been implicated in diverse social, cognitive, and affective processes, as well as risk for forms of dementia and psychiatric disorders that associate with systemic inflammation. Areas of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and surrounding medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) within the DMN have been implicated specifically in regulating autonomic and neuroendocrine processes that relate to systemic inflammation via bidirectional signaling mechanisms.

Resting state connectivity of the medial prefrontal cortex covaries with individual differences in high-frequency heart rate variability.

Resting high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) relates to cardiac vagal control and predicts individual differences in health and longevity, but its functional neural correlates are not well defined. The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) encompasses visceral control regions that are components of intrinsic networks of the brain, particularly the default mode network (DMN) and the salience network (SN). Might individual differences in resting HF-HRV covary with resting state neural activity in the DMN and SN, particularly within the mPFC? This question was addressed using fMRI data from an eyes-open, 5-min rest period during which echoplanar brain imaging yielded BOLD time series.

Community Socioeconomic Disadvantage in Midlife Relates to Cortical Morphology via Neuroendocrine and Cardiometabolic Pathways.

Residing in communities of socioeconomic disadvantage confers risk for chronic diseases and cognitive aging, as well as risk for biological factors that negatively affect brain morphology. The present study tested whether community disadvantage negatively associates with brain morphology via 2 biological factors encompassing cardiometabolic disease risk and neuroendocrine function. Participants were 448 midlife adults aged 30-54 years (236 women) who underwent structural neuroimaging to assess cortical and subcortical brain tissue morphology.

Brain morphology links systemic inflammation to cognitive function in midlife adults.

Background: Inflammation is linked to cognitive decline in midlife, but the neural basis for this link is unclear. One possibility is that inflammation associates with adverse changes in brain morphology, which accelerates cognitive aging and later dementia risk. Clear evidence is lacking, however, regarding whether inflammation relates to cognition in midlife via changes in brain morphology.

Cerebral perfusion alterations and cerebral amyloid in autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease.

Objective: To evaluate alterations in cerebral blood flow (CBF) using arterial spin-labeled MRI in autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease (ADAD) mutation carriers (MCs) in relation to cerebral amyloid and compared with age-matched healthy controls.

Background: Recent work has identified alterations in CBF in elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer dementia using MRI. However, similar studies are lacking in ADAD.

An inflammatory pathway links atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk to neural activity evoked by the cognitive regulation of emotion.

Background: Cognitive reappraisal is a form of emotion regulation that alters emotional responding by changing the meaning of emotional stimuli. Reappraisal engages regions of the prefrontal cortex that support multiple functions, including visceral control functions implicated in regulating the immune system. Immune activity plays a role in the preclinical pathophysiology of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD), an inflammatory condition that is highly comorbid with affective disorders characterized by problems with emotion regulation.

Use of total cerebral blood flow as an imaging biomarker of known cardiovascular risks.

Background And Purpose: This study examined whether overall cerebral blood flow was associated with known vascular risk factors, including cardiometabolic risk factors that comprise the metabolic syndrome, carotid artery intima-media thickness, and the Framingham risk score.

Methods: Three separate samples were available for analysis. Two comparable samples were combined to form a primary sample of middle-aged participants (n=576; 30-55 years of age) that completed both a risk factor assessment and a resting brain scan.

Parental education predicts corticostriatal functionality in adulthood.

Socioeconomic disadvantage experienced in early development predicts ill health in adulthood. However, the neurobiological pathways linking early disadvantage to adult health remain unclear. Lower parental education-a presumptive indicator of early socioeconomic disadvantage-predicts health-impairing adult behaviors, including tobacco and alcohol dependencies.