The Relationship Between Reduced Hand Dexterity and Brain Structure Abnormality in Older Adults.

Background: Hand dexterity is affected by normal aging and neuroinflammatory processes in the brain. Understanding the relationship between hand dexterity and brain structure in neurotypical older adults may be informative about prodromal pathological processes, thus providing an opportunity for earlier diagnosis and intervention to improve functional outcomes.

Methods: this study investigates the associations between hand dexterity and brain measures in neurotypical older adults (≥65 years) using the Nine-Hole Peg Test (9HPT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

The Development of Ambiguity Processing Is Explained by an Inverted U-Shaped Curve.

Understanding the developmental trajectories for recognizing facial expressions is important for a better understanding of development of psychiatric disorders. In this study, we examined the recognition of emotional and neutral facial expressions in 93 typically developing adolescents and adults. The Emotion Intensity Rating task required participants to rate the intensity of emotional expression in happy, neutral, and sad faces on a scale from 1 to 9.

The relationship between the size and asymmetry of the lateral ventricles and cortical myelin content in individuals with mood disorders.

Background: Although enlargement of the lateral ventricles was previously observed in individuals with mood disorders, the link between ventricular size and asymmetry with other indices of brain structure remains underexplored. In this study, we examined the association of lateral ventricular size and asymmetry with cortical myelin content in individuals with bipolar (BD) and depressive (DD) disorders compared to healthy controls (HC).

Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to obtain T1w and T2w images from 149 individuals (age=27.

Neural correlates of the sound facilitation effect in the modified Simon task in older adults.

Introduction: The ability to resolve interference declines with age and is attributed to neurodegeneration and reduced cognitive function and mental alertness in older adults. Our previous study revealed that task-irrelevant but environmentally meaningful sounds improve performance on the modified Simon task in older adults. However, little is known about neural correlates of this sound facilitation effect.

Hand Dexterity Is Associated with the Ability to Resolve Perceptual and Cognitive Interference in Older Adults: Pilot Study.

The relationship between hand dexterity and inhibitory control across the lifespan is underexplored. In this pilot study, we examined inhibitory control using a modified Simon task. During the task, participants were presented with right- and left-pointing arrows located either on the right or the left parts of the screen.

The Role of Puberty and Sex on Brain Structure in Adolescents With Anxiety Following Concussion.

Background: Adolescence represents a window of vulnerability for developing psychological symptoms following concussion, especially in girls. Concussion-related lesions in emotion regulation circuits may help explain these symptoms. However, the contribution of sex and pubertal maturation remains unclear.

Working memory updating in individuals with bipolar and unipolar depression: fMRI study.

Understanding neurobiological characteristics of cognitive dysfunction in distinct psychiatric disorders remains challenging. In this secondary data analysis, we examined neurobiological differences in brain response during working memory updating among individuals with bipolar disorder (BD), those with unipolar depression (UD), and healthy controls (HC). Individuals between 18-45 years of age with BD (n = 100), UD (n = 109), and HC (n = 172) were scanned using fMRI while performing 0-back (easy) and 2-back (difficult) tasks with letters as the stimuli and happy, fearful, or neutral faces as distractors.

Behavioral and neuroimaging evidence prodromal to major depressive disorder onset in a young adult without personal or family history of psychiatric disorder: Case report.

Background: Subthreshold symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) may be underreported due to stigma and/or cognitive impairment associated with this illness. Identifying objective behavioral and neural markers prodromal to MDD onset would help overcome this bias. This case study reports prospective behavioral and neuroimaging evidence prodromal to MDD onset in a young adult without prior personal or family history of psychiatric disorders who was identified during a longitudinal study of mood disorders.

The role of sleep quality on white matter integrity and concussion symptom severity in adolescents.

Background: Sleep problems are common after concussion; yet, to date, no study has evaluated the relationship between sleep, white matter integrity, and post-concussion symptoms in adolescents. Using self-reported quality of sleep measures within the first 10 days of injury, we aimed to determine if quality of sleep exerts a main effect on white matter integrity in major tracts, as measured by diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging (dMRI), and further examine whether this effect can help explain the variance in post-concussion symptom severity in 12- to 17.9-year-old adolescents.

Vestibular/ocular motor symptoms in concussed adolescents are linked to retrosplenial activation.

Following concussion, adolescents often experience vestibular and ocular motor symptoms as well as working memory deficits that may affect their cognitive, academic and social well-being. Complex visual environments including school activities, playing sports, or socializing with friends may be overwhelming for concussed adolescents suffering from headache, dizziness, nausea and fogginess, thus imposing heightened requirements on working memory to adequately function in such environments. While understanding the relationship between working memory and vestibular/ocular motor symptoms is critically important, no previous study has examined how an increase in working memory task difficulty affects the relationship between severity of vestibular/ocular motor symptoms and brain and behavioural responses in a working memory task.

Resting State Functional Connectivity between Dorsal Attentional Network and Right Inferior Frontal Gyrus in Concussed and Control Adolescents.

Concussion among adolescents continues to be a public health concern. Yet, the differences in brain function between adolescents with a recent concussion and adolescents with no history of concussion are not well understood. Although resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can be a useful tool in examining these differences, few studies have used this technique to examine concussion in adolescents.

The effects of mood disorders and childhood trauma on fear of positive and negative evaluation.

Fear of positive and negative evaluation is maladaptive and may result in psychosocial dysfunction. Although being diagnosed with mood disorders or experiencing childhood trauma may potentially affect fear of evaluation, previous studies examined this phenomenon mostly in social anxiety disorders. To fill this gap, we investigated the relationship between childhood trauma and fear of positive and negative evaluation in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD), depressive disorders (DD), and healthy controls (HC).

The Relationship Between Default Mode and Dorsal Attention Networks Is Associated With Depressive Disorder Diagnosis and the Strength of Memory Representations Acquired Prior to the Resting State Scan.

Previous research indicates that individuals with depressive disorders (DD) have aberrant resting state functional connectivity and may experience memory dysfunction. While resting state functional connectivity may be affected by experiences preceding the resting state scan, little is known about this relationship in individuals with DD. Our study examined this question in the context of object memory.

Protocol for a machine learning algorithm predicting depressive disorders using the T1w/T2w ratio.

The T1w/T2w ratio is a novel magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measure that is thought to be sensitive to cortical myelin. Using this novel measure requires developing novel pipelines for the data quality assurance, data analysis, and validation of the findings in order to apply the T1w/T2w ratio for classification of disorders associated with the changes in the myelin levels. In this article, we provide a detailed description of such a pipeline as well as the reference to the scripts used in our recent report that applied the T1w/T2w ratio and machine learning to classify individuals with depressive disorders from healthy controls.

Aberrant levels of cortical myelin distinguish individuals with depressive disorders from healthy controls.

The association between depressive disorders and measures reflecting myelin content is underexplored, despite growing evidence of associations with white matter tract integrity. We characterized the T1w/T2w ratio using the Glasser atlas in 39 UD and 47 HC participants (ages = 19-44, 75% female). A logistic elastic net regularized regression with nested cross-validation and a subsequent linear discriminant analysis conducted on held-out samples were used to select brain regions and classify patients vs.

White matter abnormalities in adults with bipolar disorder type-II and unipolar depression.

Discerning distinct neurobiological characteristics of related mood disorders such as bipolar disorder type-II (BD-II) and unipolar depression (UD) is challenging due to overlapping symptoms and patterns of disruption in brain regions. More than 60% of individuals with UD experience subthreshold hypomanic symptoms such as elevated mood, irritability, and increased activity. Previous studies linked bipolar disorder to widespread white matter abnormalities.

Prefrontal cortical activation during working memory task anticipation contributes to discrimination between bipolar and unipolar depression.

Distinguishing bipolar disorder (BD) from major depressive disorder (MDD) is clinically challenging, especially during depressive episodes. While both groups are characterized by aberrant working memory and anticipatory processing, the role of these processes in discriminating BD from MDD remains unexplored. In this study, we examine how brain activation corresponding to anticipation of and performance on easy vs.

The impact of familial risk and early life adversity on emotion and reward processing networks in youth at-risk for bipolar disorder.

A recently developed risk calculator for bipolar disorder (BD) accounts for clinical and parental psychopathology. Yet, it is understood that both familial predisposition and early life adversity contribute to the development of BD. How the interplay between these two factors influence emotion and reward processing networks in youth at risk for BD remains unclear.

Clinical, cortical thickness and neural activity predictors of future affective lability in youth at risk for bipolar disorder: initial discovery and independent sample replication.

We aimed to identify markers of future affective lability in youth at bipolar disorder risk from the Pittsburgh Bipolar Offspring Study (BIOS) (n = 41, age = 14, SD = 2.30), and validate these predictors in an independent sample from the Longitudinal Assessment of Manic Symptoms study (LAMS) (n = 55, age = 13.7, SD = 1.

The role of the right prefrontal cortex in recognition of facial emotional expressions in depressed individuals: fNIRS study.

Background: Depressed individuals often perceive neutral facial expressions as emotional. Neurobiological underpinnings of this effect remain unclear. We investigated the differences in prefrontal cortical (PFC) activation in depressed individuals vs.

Baseline and follow-up activity and functional connectivity in reward neural circuitries in offspring at risk for bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a serious psychiatric illness with demonstrated abnormalities in reward processing circuitry. Examining this circuitry in youth at familial risk for BD may provide further insight into the underlying mechanisms of BD development. In this study, we compared offspring of bipolar parents (OBP, n = 32), offspring of comparison parents with non-BD psychopathology (OCP, n = 36), and offspring of healthy parents (OHP, n = 39) during a functional magnetic resonance imaging reward processing task.

Longitudinal changes in brain activation during anticipation of monetary loss in bipolar disorder.

Background: Individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) show aberrant brain activation patterns during reward and loss anticipation. We examined for the first time longitudinal changes in brain activation during win and loss anticipation to identify trait markers of aberrant anticipatory processing in BD.

Methods: Thirty-four euthymic and depressed individuals with BD-I and 17 healthy controls (HC) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging twice 6 months apart during a reward task.

Intrinsic functional connectivity correlates of person-level risk for bipolar disorder in offspring of affected parents.

Offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (OBP) are at increased risk to develop bipolar disorder (BD). Alterations in resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) have been identified in OBP; however, replication has been limited and correlation with person-level risk is unknown. A recent study found reduced rsFC between left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and clusters in the left insula (LINS), lentiform nucleus (LENT), and midcingulate cortex (MCING) in OBP (Roberts et al.