Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography scans in patients with alcohol use disorder.

Background: Diminished uptake of fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has been observed in patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD) but little statistical contrast of the regional brain deficits has been undertaken. This study examined prefrontal cortex inter-regional Brodmann area differences to delineate patterns associated with behavioral, neurotransmitter, and general toxicity hypotheses of cerebral involvement in AUD.

Methods: We obtained data from FDG positron emission tomography (PET) and anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for 87 patients with AUD and 41 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteers.

Neurocognitive profile of adolescents with early-onset schizophrenia and their unaffected siblings.

Background: We investigated the neurocognitive profiles of Early-Onset Schizophrenia (EOS; onset before age 18) and paired unaffected siblings and the little-studied effect of age-of-onset and duration of illness on cognitive performance.

Methods: 31 EOS probands, and 31 of their siblings, had four cognitive domains assessed: (a) Memory: California Verbal Learning Test, and the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised; (b) Working memory: Digit Span; (c) Attention: Degraded-Stimulus Continuous Performance Test, Span of Apprehension (SPAN), and Trail Making Test (TMT) part A; (d) Executive function: Wisconsin card sorting task, and TMT part B. Diagnosis was confirmed using the structured clinical interview for DSM-IV.

Four-modality imaging of unmedicated subjects with schizophrenia: F-fluorodeoxyglucose and F-fallypride PET, diffusion tensor imaging, and MRI.

Diminished prefrontal function, dopaminergic abnormalities in the striatum and thalamus, reductions in white matter integrity and frontotemporal gray matter deficits are the most replicated findings in schizophrenia. We used four imaging modalities (F-fluorodeoxyglucose and F-fallypride PET, diffusion tensor imaging, structural MRI) in 19 healthy and 25 schizophrenia subjects to assess the relationship between functional (dopamine D/D receptor binding potential, glucose metabolic rate) and structural (fractional anisotropy, MRI) correlates of schizophrenia and their additive diagnostic prediction potential. Multivariate ANOVA was used to compare structural and functional image sets for identification of schizophrenia.

Reading abilities and dopamine D/D receptor availability: An inverted U-shaped association in subjects with schizophrenia.

Reading impairments are prominent trait-like features of cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, predictive of overall cognitive functioning and presumably linked to dopaminergic abnormalities. To evaluate this, we used F-fallypride PET in 19 healthy and 21 antipsychotic-naïve schizophrenia subjects and correlated dopamine receptor binding potentials in relevant AFNI-derived regions and voxelwise with group performance on WRAT4 single-word reading subtest. Healthy subjects' scores were positively and linearly associated with D/D receptor availability in the rectus, orbital and superior frontal gyri, fusiform and middle temporal gyri, as well as middle occipital gyrus and precuneus, all predominantly in the left hemisphere and previously implicated in reading, hence suggesting that higher dopamine receptor density is cognitively advantageous.

Neural Correlates of Autobiographical Memory: Evidence From a Positron Emission Tomography Study in Patients With Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease.

Autobiographical memory (AM) changes are the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In recent neuroimaging studies, AM changes have been associated with numerous cerebral sites, such as the frontal cortices, the mesial temporal lobe, or the posterior cingulum. Regional glucose uptake in these sites was investigated for underlying subdimensions using factor analysis.