Altered spontaneous neuronal activity in chronic posttraumatic stress disorder patients before and after a 12-week paroxetine treatment.

Background: Abnormal functional brain activity has been revealed in patients with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in recent years, while the recovery neuromechanism of PTSD has not yet been elucidated. The aim of this study was to investigate the altered spontaneous brain activity in treatment-naïve chronic PTSD patients before and after 12 weeks׳ treatment with paroxetine.

Methods: Twenty-one earthquake-related PTSD patients and seventeen traumatized controls underwent a resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (Rs-fMRI) scan at baseline.

Prediction of post-earthquake depressive and anxiety symptoms: a longitudinal resting-state fMRI study.

Neurobiological markers of stress symptom progression for healthy survivors from a disaster (e.g., an earthquake) would greatly help with early intervention to prevent the development of stress-related disorders.

Lateral ventricular cystic meningioma: 2 rare case reports.

Cystic meningioma is an uncommon meningioma variant that is often difficult to distinguish from other intra-axial tumors, including necrotic gliomas. Cystic meningiomas located in the ventricle are particularly rare and may be misdiagnosed with other brain tumors, including ependymoma, choroid plexus papilloma and neurocytoma, due to its location. The present study discusses two cases of lateral ventricular meningiomas, which exhibited intratumoral or peritumoral cystic changes on magnetic resonance imaging scans.

Cerebral anatomical changes in female asthma patients with and without depression compared to healthy controls and patients with depression.

Background: Population-based studies have demonstrated that asthma patients with depression symptoms are more likely to have poor asthma control and worse asthma outcomes. However, the underlying mechanism of the relationship between asthma and depression is still unclear. The present study aimed to examine the cerebral anatomical changes in female asthma patients with and without depression.

Anatomical deficits in adult posttraumatic stress disorder: a meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies.

Evidence from previous anatomical studies indicate that widespread brain regions are involved in the pathogenesis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The aim of the present study was to quantitatively integrate the literature on structural abnormalities seen on individuals with PTSD. Twenty voxel-based analysis studies were analysed through a comprehensive series of meta-analyses.

Alterations in low-level perceptual networks related to clinical severity in PTSD after an earthquake: a resting-state fMRI study.

Background: Several task-based functional MRI (fMRI) studies have highlighted abnormal activation in specific regions involving the low-level perceptual (auditory, visual, and somato-motor) network in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients. However, little is known about whether the functional connectivity of the low-level perceptual and higher-order cognitive (attention, central-execution, and default-mode) networks change in medication-naïve PTSD patients during the resting state.

Methods: We investigated the resting state networks (RSNs) using independent component analysis (ICA) in 18 chronic Wenchuan earthquake-related PTSD patients versus 20 healthy survivors (HSs).

Intrinsic brain abnormalities in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder: a resting-state functional MR imaging study.

Purpose: To explore alterations of regional and network-level neural function using resting-state functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in children and adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and to assess the association between these alterations of intrinsic neural activity and executive dysfunction in ADHD.

Materials And Methods: This prospective study was approved by the local ethical committee, and written informed consent was obtained from guardians of all participants. Thirty-three boys with ADHD who were not receiving medication and who were without comorbidity (aged 6-16 years) and 32 healthy control subjects (aged 8-16 years) underwent imaging by using resting-state functional MR imaging.

Neural hyperactivity related to working memory in drug-naive boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Background: Impaired working memory is thought to be a core feature of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Previous imaging studies investigating working memory in ADHD have used tasks involving different cognitive resources and ignoring the categorical judgments about objects that are essential parts of performance in visual working memory tasks, thus complicating the interpretation of their findings. In the present study, we explored differential neural activation in children and adolescents with ADHD and in healthy controls using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with the categorical n-back task (CN-BT), which maximized demands for executive reasoning while holding memory demands constant.

The common traits of the ACC and PFC in anxiety disorders in the DSM-5: meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies.

Background: The core domains of social anxiety disorder (SAD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder (PD) with and without agoraphobia (GA), and specific phobia (SP) are cognitive and physical symptoms that are related to the experience of fear and anxiety. It remains unclear whether these highly comorbid conditions that constitute the anxiety disorder subgroups of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders--Fifth Edition (DSM-5) represent distinct disorders or alternative presentations of a single underlying pathology.

Methods: A systematic search of voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of SAD, GAD, PD, GA, and SP was performed with an effect-size signed differential mapping (ES-SDM) meta-analysis to estimate the clusters of significant gray matter differences between patients and controls.

Altered cortical thickness related to clinical severity but not the untreated disease duration in schizophrenia.

Although previous studies have reported deficits in the gray matter volume of schizophrenic patients, it remains unclear whether these deficits occur at the onset of the disease, before treatment, and whether they are progressive over the duration of untreated disease. Furthermore, the gray matter volume represents the combinations of cortical thickness and surface area; these features are believed to be influenced by different genetic factors. However, cortical thickness and surface area in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenic patients have seldom been investigated.

Similar and different gray matter deficits in schizophrenia patients and their unaffected biological relatives.

Neuroimaging studies have revealed significant reductions in the gray matter (GM) of several brain regions in patients with schizophrenia, a neuropsychiatric disorder with high hereditability. However, it is unclear whether unaffected relatives have GM abnormalities in common with their affected relatives, which may relate to susceptibility to developing schizophrenia. To address this issue, we conducted two separate meta-analyses of voxel-based morphometry to investigate GM abnormalities in schizophrenia patients and their unaffected relatives.

Altered resting-state functional and white matter tract connectivity in stroke patients with dysphagia.

Background: Swallowing dysfunction is intractable after acute stroke. Our understanding of the alterations in neural networks of patients with neurogenic dysphagia is still developing.

Objective: The aim was to investigate cerebral cortical functional connectivity and subcortical structural connectivity related to swallowing in unilateral hemispheric stroke patients with dysphagia.

Gelastic epilepsy in combination with hypothalamic hamartoma and partial agenesis of the corpus callosum: A case report and review of the literature.

Gelastic epilepsy has been reported to originate from various conditions, particularly from hypothalamic hamartoma (HH). In the present study, we report a patient with gelastic seizures (GSs), followed by complex partial and tonic-clonic seizures. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed a rare combination of HH and partial agenesis of the corpus callosum (ACC).

Altered default mode and affective network connectivity in stroke patients with and without dysphagia.

Objective: Neuroimaging studies in stroke patients provide substantial evidence for the involvement of widespread cortical and subcortical regions in the control of swallowing. Although the affective network and the default mode network are functionally related to "autonomic" and "volitional" swallowing, little is known about their functional changes in dysphagic stroke patients.

Methods: Unbiased seeds functional connectivity analysis was used to study the connectivity patterns of these resting-state networks.

Unsuspected paraganglioma of the urinary bladder with intraoperative hypertensive crises: A case report.

Paraganglioma of the urinary bladder is rare, accounting for <0.05% of all bladder tumors. Common clinical findings in patients with bladder paraganglioma include hematuria and intermittent hypertension during urination, along with generalized symptoms due to increased levels of catecholamines.

Association of white matter deficits with clinical symptoms in antipsychotic-naive first-episode schizophrenia: an optimized VBM study using 3T.

Object: To examine the whole brain white matter morphology in antipsychotic-naive patients with first-episode schizophrenia (FES) and its correlations with symptom severity.

Materials And Methods: High-resolution T1-weighted images of 64 drug-naive FES patients and 64 matched healthy controls were acquired using a 3 T MR imaging system. Then, optimized voxel-based morphometry was performed to compare the group differences.

Characterization of major depressive disorder using a multiparametric classification approach based on high resolution structural images.

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most disabling mental illnesses. Previous neuroanatomical studies of MDD have revealed regional alterations in grey matter volume and density. However, owing to the heterogeneous symptomatology and complex etiology, MDD is likely to be associated with multiple morphometric alterations in brain structure.

Neuroanatomical deficits in drug-naïve adult patients with generalized social anxiety disorder: a voxel-based morphometry study.

Little is known, so far, about the cerebral structural deficits in drug-naïve adult social anxiety disorder (SAD) patients. The present study aimed to explore the cerebral anatomic deficits in drug-naïve adult generalized SAD patients using voxel-based morphometric analysis with DARTEL. High-resolution T1-weighted images were acquired from 20 drug-naïve adult SAD patients and 19 age-, sex- and education-matched controls.

Altered functional connectivity in an aged rat model of postoperative cognitive dysfunction: a study using resting-state functional MRI.

Background: Postoperative cognitive impairment is a common complication after cardiac and major non-cardiac surgery in the elderly, but its causes and mechanisms remain unclear. The purpose of the current study was to use resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore changes in the functional connectivity, i.e.

Anatomical and functional brain abnormalities in drug-naive first-episode schizophrenia.

Objective: The authors sought to explore whether anatomical and functional brain deficits are present in similar or different brain regions early in the course of schizophrenia, before antipsychotic treatment, and whether these deficits are more severe or otherwise different in patients with prominent negative symptoms.

Method: A total of 100 drug-naive first-episode schizophrenia patients and 100 matched healthy comparison subjects underwent structural and resting-state functional MRI scanning. Gray matter volume and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations during resting-state functional studies were measured.

Brain structural plasticity in survivors of a major earthquake.

Background: Stress responses have been studied extensively in animal models, but effects of major life stress on the human brain remain poorly understood. The aim of this study was to determine whether survivors of a major earthquake, who were presumed to have experienced extreme emotional stress during the disaster, demonstrate differences in brain anatomy relative to individuals who have not experienced such stressors.

Methods: Healthy survivors living in an area devastated by a major earthquake and matched healthy controls underwent 3-dimentional high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

White matter deficits in first episode schizophrenia: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.

Background: Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been widely used in psychiatric research and has provided evidence of white matter abnormalities in first episode schizophrenia (FES). The goal of the present meta-analysis was to identify white matter deficits by DTI in FES.

Methods: A systematic search was conducted to collect DTI studies with voxel-wised analysis of the fractional anisotropy (FA) in FES.

Is depression a disconnection syndrome? Meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging studies in patients with MDD.

Background: Many studies using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) have demonstrated impaired white matter integrity in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), with significant results found in diverse brain regions. We sought to identify whether there are consistent changes of regional white matter integrity in patients with MDD, as shown by decreased fractional anisotropy in DTI.

Method: A systematic search strategy was used to identify relevant whole brain voxel-based DTI studies of patients with MDD in relation to comparison groups.