Publications by authors named "J M J Op Heij"
Background: The thalamus serves as a central relay station within the brain, and thalamic connectional anomalies are increasingly thought to be present in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the use of conventional MRI scanners and acquisition techniques has prevented a thorough examination of the thalamus and its subnuclear connectional profile. We combined ultra-high field diffusion MRI acquired at 7.
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- * Researchers used a 7.0 Tesla ultra-high field diffusion MRI to examine the white matter integrity of various dopamine pathways in 53 MDD patients compared to 12 healthy controls.
- * The study found that MDD is linked to structural differences in the nigrostriatal pathway and that factors like depression severity and insomnia impact connectivity in other dopamine-related pathways.
Hippocampal, thalamic, and amygdala subfield morphology in major depressive disorder: an ultra-high resolution MRI study at 7-Tesla.
Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci
August 2024
Morphological changes in the hippocampal, thalamic, and amygdala subfields have been suggested to form part of the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the use of conventional MRI scanners and acquisition techniques has prevented in-depth examinations at the subfield level, precluding a fine-grained understanding of these subfields and their involvement in MDD pathophysiology. We uniquely employed ultra-high field MRI at 7.
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- Researchers looked at changes in brain structure in people with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) using a special type of MRI scanner that gives more detailed images.
- They focused on specific areas of the brain related to emotions and found that people with MDD had less myelination, which is important for brain communication, especially in a part of the brain tied to feeling sad.
- The study suggests that these changes in the brain's microstructure might help explain some of the problems that come with MDD, but the researchers are careful about how they interpret these results.
Depth-resolved functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is an emerging field growing in popularity given the potential of separating signals from different computational processes in cerebral cortex. Conventional acquisition schemes suffer from low spatial and temporal resolutions. Line-scanning methods allow depth-resolved fMRI by sacrificing spatial coverage to sample blood oxygenated level-dependent (BOLD) responses at ultra-high temporal and spatial resolution.
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