Cognitive behavioural therapy for the treatment of late life depression: study protocol of a multicentre, randomized, observer-blinded, controlled trial (CBTlate).

Background: Late-life depression (LLD) is one of the most prevalent mental disorders in old age. It is associated with various adverse outcomes and frequent use of health care services thereby remaining a serious public health concern. Compared with depression in early adulthood, most treatment options of LLD are less effective.

A transcallosal fibre system between homotopic inferior frontal regions supports complex linguistic processing.

Inferior frontal regions in the left and right hemisphere support different aspects of language processing. In the canonical model, left inferior frontal regions are mostly involved in processing based on phonological, syntactic and semantic features of language, whereas the right inferior frontal regions process paralinguistic aspects like affective prosody. Using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based probabilistic fibre tracking in 20 healthy volunteers, we identify a callosal fibre system connecting left and right inferior frontal regions that are involved in linguistic processing of varying complexity.

Plasmapheresis Responsive Rapid Onset Dementia with Predominantly Frontal Dysfunction in the Context of Hashimoto's Encephalopathy.

Background: Hashimoto's encephalopathy (HE) is a rare immunological neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by increased antithyroid antibodies and mixed neurological and psychiatric symptoms. HE has been previously discussed as a differential diagnosis for rapid progressive dementia. However, most of these patients suffered from additional neurological symptoms, like ataxia or seizures.

The Dual-Loop Model and the Human Mirror Neuron System: an Exploratory Combined fMRI and DTI Study of the Inferior Frontal Gyrus.

The inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is active during both goal-directed action and while observing the same motor act, leading to the idea that also the meaning of a motor act (action understanding) is represented in this "mirror neuron system" (MNS). However, in the dual-loop model, based on dorsal and ventral visual streams, the MNS is thought to be a function of the dorsal steam, projecting to pars opercularis (BA44) of IFG, while recent studies suggest that conceptual meaning and semantic analysis are a function of ventral connections, projecting mainly to pars triangularis (BA45) of IFG. To resolve this discrepancy, we investigated action observation (AO) and imitation (IMI) using fMRI in a large group of subjects.

The ventral fiber pathway for pantomime of object use.

The current concept of a dual loop system of brain organization predicts a domain-general dual-pathway architecture involving dorsal and ventral fiber connections. We investigated if a similar dichotomy of brain network organization applies for pantomime (P) and imitation of meaningless gestures (I). Impairments of these tasks occur after left hemispheric brain lesions causing apraxia.