Altered brain morphology and functional connectivity in postmenopausal women: automatic segmentation of whole-brain and thalamic subnuclei and resting-state fMRI.

The transition to menopause is associated with various physiological changes, including alterations in brain structure and function. However, menopause-related structural and functional changes are poorly understood. The purpose of this study was not only to compare the brain volume changes between premenopausal and postmenopausal women, but also to evaluate the functional connectivity between the targeted brain regions associated with structural atrophy in postmenopausal women.

Early Detection of Alzheimer's Disease in Postmenopausal Women Using Thalamic Subnuclear Volumetry.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) and aging are intrinsically interconnected with each other and are mediated by molecular, cellular, and biological systems. In particular, a specific pattern of brain volume atrophy is the most profound risk factor for cognitive impairment, including AD, that is directly linked to aging. Thus, this study aimed to investigate knowledge on the early detection of AD in postmenopausal women, focusing on the volume changes of the subcortical regions, including the thalamic subnuclei, in women with AD vs.

Comparative Functional Connectivity of Core Brain Regions between Implicit and Explicit Memory Tasks Underlying Negative Emotion in General Anxiety Disorder.

Objective: To investigate not only differential patterns of functional connectivity of core brain regions between implicit and explicit verbal memory tasks underlying negatively evoked emotional condition, but also correlations of functional connectivity (FC) strength with clinical symptom severity in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD).

Methods: Thirteen patients with GAD and 13 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging for memory tasks with negative emotion words.

Results: Clinical symptom and its severities of GAD were potentially associated with abnormalities of task-based FC with core brain regions and distinct FC patterns between implicit vs.

White Matter Connectivity and Gray Matter Volume Changes Following Donepezil Treatment in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment: A Preliminary Study Using Probabilistic Tractography.

The donepezil treatment is associated with improved cognitive performance in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and its clinical effectiveness is well-known. However, the impact of the donepezil treatment on the enhanced white matter connectivity in MCI is still unclear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the thalamo-cortical white matter (WM) connectivity and cortical thickness and gray matter (GM) volume changes in the cortical regions following donepezil treatment in patients with MCI using probabilistic tractography and voxel-based morphometry.

MRI-Based Multimodal Approach to the Assessment of Clinical Symptom Severity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Objective: This study assessed the associations of the abnormal brain activation and functional connectivity (FC) during memory processing and brain volume alteration in conjunction with psychiatric symptom severity in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Methods: Twenty-OCD patients and 20-healthy controls (HC) underwent T1-weighted and functional imaging underlying explicit memory task.

Results: In memory encoding, OCD patients showed higher activities in right/left (Rt.

A pilot study of brain morphometry following donepezil treatment in mild cognitive impairment: volume changes of cortical/subcortical regions and hippocampal subfields.

The efficacy of donepezil is well known for improving the cognitive performance in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Most of the recent neuroimaging studies focusing on the brain morphometry have dealt with the targeted brain structures, and thus it remains unknown how donepezil treatment influences the volume change over the whole brain areas including the cortical and subcortical regions and hippocampal subfields in particular. This study aimed to evaluate overall gray matter (GM) volume changes after donepezil treatment in MCI, which is a prodromal phase of AD, using voxel-based morphometry.

Metabolic alterations in acute myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury and necrosis using in vivo hyperpolarized [1-C] pyruvate MR spectroscopy.

This study aimed to investigate real-time early detection of metabolic alteration in a rat model with acute myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (AMI/R) injury and myocardial necrosis, as well as its correlation with intracellular pH level using in vivo hyperpolarized [1-C] pyruvate magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Hyperpolarized C MRS was performed on the myocardium of 8 sham-operated control rats and 8 rats with AMI/R injury, and 8 sham-operated control rats and 8 rats with AMI-induced necrosis. Also, the correlations of levels of [1-C] metabolites with pH were analyzed by Spearman's correlation test.

Brain Morphological Changes With Functional Deficit Associated With Sexual Arousal in Postmenopausal Women.

Introduction: We have not known how menopause synchronously influences brain morphology and function associated with visually stimulated sexual arousal in postmenopausal women.

Aim: This study used a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging and voxel-based morphometry to evaluate menopause-related brain morphological and functional changes in postmenopausal women.

Methods: Nineteen premenopausal women and 19 postmenopausal women underwent functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging.

Brain Activation Patterns Associated with the Effects of Fearful Distractors during Working Memory Maintenance in Patients with Schizophrenia.

Objective: The neural correlates underlying the effects of emotional distraction during working memory (WM) tasks in patients with schizophrenia have yet to be clearly identified. Thus, the present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the effects of emotional distraction involving fear during WM maintenance in patients with schizophrenia.

Methods: This study included 17 patients with schizophrenia who were diagnosed based on Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition, text revision (DSM-IV-TR) criteria and 17 matched healthy controls.

A comparative study of white matter volume between postoperative female-to-male transsexuals and healthy female.

Cross-sex hormones in female-to-male (FtM) transsexuals play a crucial role in brain plasticity. Morphological study associated with white matter (WM) volume in postoperative FtM transsexuals receiving cross-sex hormones has not been published yet. This study was performed to discriminate the regional WM volume differences between postoperative FtM transsexuals and female controls using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and further to assess the correlations between regional volume variations and cross-sex hormones.

Effects of Sex Hormones and Age on Brain Volume in Post-Menopausal Women.

Background: Investigation of the effect of sex hormones on the brain volume in women provides a unique opportunity to examine menopause-related morphometric alterations.

Aim: To evaluate brain morphological alterations in post-menopausal women using voxel-based morphometry and its correlations with sex hormone levels.

Methods: 20 Pre-menopausal women and 20 post-menopausal women underwent structural MRI.

Whole-brain volume alteration and its correlation with anxiety severity in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.

Purpose: To evaluate the differential gray matter (GM) and white matter volume alterations between healthy controls and patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) using voxel-based morphometry (VBM).

Method: Patients with OCD and GAD, and healthy controls underwent MR.

Results: Patients with GAD showed significantly decreased GM volume in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) compared with patients with OCD (p < 0.

Associations of neurofunctional, morphometric and metabolic abnormalities with clinical symptom severity and recognition deficit in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) causes neural dysfunction associated with cognitive deficit and emotional dysregulation. This study assessed the associations of the neurofunctional changes, gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) volume alterations in conjunction with in vivo metabolic changes on the working memory tasks in patients with OCD.

Methods: Eighteen patients with OCD and 18 healthy controls matched for age, sex, and educational levels underwent high-resolution T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), event-related functional MRI (fMRI), and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS) at 3T.

Whole brain volume changes and its correlation with clinical symptom severity in patients with schizophrenia: A DARTEL-based VBM study.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) volume alterations in whole-brain structures in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls using voxel-based morphometry (VBM), and further to assess the correlation between GM and WM volume variations and symptom severity in schizophrenia. A total of 22 patients with schizophrenia and 22 age-matched healthy controls participated. Magnetic resonance image data were processed using SPM8 software with diffeomorphic anatomical registration via an exponentiated Lie algebra (DARTEL) algorithm.

Comparative functional neuroanatomy between implicit and explicit memory tasks under negative emotional condition in schizophrenia.

Purpose: To evaluate the brain activation patterns in response to negative emotion during implicit and explicit memory in patients with schizophrenia.

Material And Methods: Fourteen patients with schizophrenia and 14 healthy controls were included in this study. The 3.

Menopause-related brain activation patterns during visual sexual arousal in menopausal women: An fMRI pilot study using time-course analysis.

The aging process and menopausal transition are important factors in sexual dysfunction of menopausal women. No neuroimaging study has assessed the age- and menopause-related changes on brain activation areas associated with sexual arousal in menopausal women. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the time course of regional brain activity associated with sexual arousal evoked by visual stimulation in premenopausal and menopausal women, and further to assess the effect of menopause on the brain areas associated with sexual arousal in menopausal women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Neuroanatomical assessment of the impact of negative emotion on explicit memory in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The aim of this study was to identify the brain activation patterns associated with emotionally neutral or unpleasant words during explicit memory tasks in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using a functional MRI. Sixteen patients with OCD (mean age=31.4±10.

Metabolic abnormality in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Objective: Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) was used to evaluate metabolic changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Methods: In total, 14 OCD patients (mean age 28.9±7.

Metabolic biomarkers for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease induced by high-fat diet: In vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy of hyperpolarized [1-C] pyruvate.

Hyperpolarized C magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to assess hepatic metabolism in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has not been reported. This study searched for cellular metabolism-based biomarkers for NAFLD induced by a high-fat diet (HFD) in rats. Also, correlations of the biomarkers with enzyme levels and histopathology were identified during a 6-week follow-up.

Working memory dysfunction associated with brain functional deficits and cellular metabolic changes in patients with generalized anxiety disorder.

Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is associated with brain functional and morphological changes in connected with emotional dysregulation and cognitive deficit. This study dealt with the neural functional deficits and metabolic abnormalities in working memory (WM) task with emotion-inducing distractors in patients with GAD. Fourteen patients with GAD and 14 healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy ((1)H-MRS) at 3T.

Time-course metabolic changes in high-fat diet-induced obesity rats: A pilot study using hyperpolarized (13)C dynamic MRS.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the time-course metabolic changes based on hyperpolarized (13)C magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obesity rats and the correlation between metabolic and serum enzyme levels. Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either HFD (60% fat) or normal diet (10% fat) for 6weeks. A HyperSense DNP was used to hyperpolarize [1-(13)C] pyruvic acid and the hyperpolarized (13)C MRS was examined every 2weeks in the course of 6weeks using a 3T GE MR750 scanner.

Intravoxel incoherent motion diffusion-weighted imaging for monitoring chemotherapeutic efficacy in gastric cancer.

Aim: To assess intravoxel incoherent motion diffusion-weighted imaging (IVIM-DWI) for monitoring early efficacy of chemotherapy in a human gastric cancer mouse model.

Methods: IVIM-DWI was performed with 12 b-values (0-800 s/mm(2)) in 25 human gastric cancer-bearing nude mice at baseline (day 0), and then they were randomly divided into control and 1-, 3-, 5- and 7-d treatment groups (n = 5 per group). The control group underwent longitudinal MRI scans at days 1, 3, 5 and 7, and the treatment groups underwent subsequent MRI scans after a specified 5-fluorouracil/calcium folinate treatment.