Exploring the sex and gender correlates of cognitive sex differences.

The correlates of cognitive sex differences are yet to be fully understood. Many biological and psychosocial factors modulate these cognitive abilities leading to mixed results in the scientific literature. The current study aims to explore the different parameters potentially influencing cognitive abilities acting in synergy.

The regional effect of serum hormone levels on cerebral blood flow in healthy nonpregnant women.

Sex hormones estrogen (EST) and progesterone (PROG) have received increased attention for their important physiological action outside of reproduction. While studies have shown that EST and PROG have significant impacts on brain function, their impact on the cerebrovascular system in humans remains largely unknown. To address this, we used a multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) approach to investigate the link between serum hormones in the follicular phase and luteal phase of the menstrual cycle (MC) with measures of cerebrovascular function (cerebral blood flow [CBF]) and structure (intracranial artery diameter).

Functional Connectivity During Visuospatial Processing in Schizophrenia: A Classification Study Using Lasso Regression.

Background: Robust evidence shows that schizophrenia is associated with significant cognitive impairments, including deficits in visuospatial abilities. While other cognitive domains have sparked several functional neuroimaging studies in schizophrenia, only a few brain activation studies have examined the neural correlates of visuospatial abilities in schizophrenia.

Purpose: Here, we propose to perform a functional connectivity study on visuospatial processing in schizophrenia, and to determine the classification accuracy of the observed alterations.

Functional connectivity abnormalities of the long-axis hippocampal subregions in schizophrenia during episodic memory.

Past evidence suggests that hippocampal subregions, namely the anterior and posterior parts, may be engaged in distinct networks underlying the memory functions which may be altered in patients with schizophrenia. However, of the very few studies that have investigated the hippocampal longitudinal axis subdivisions functional connectivity in patients with schizophrenia, the majority was based on resting-state data, and yet, none aimed to examine these during an episodic memory task. A total of 41 patients with schizophrenia and 45 healthy controls were recruited for a magnetic resonance imaging protocol in which they performed an explicit memory task.

Mutations associated with neuropsychiatric conditions delineate functional brain connectivity dimensions contributing to autism and schizophrenia.

16p11.2 and 22q11.2 Copy Number Variants (CNVs) confer high risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), schizophrenia (SZ), and Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder (ADHD), but their impact on functional connectivity (FC) remains unclear.

Violent Behavior Is Associated With Emotion Salience Network Dysconnectivity in Schizophrenia.

Despite individuals with schizophrenia being at an elevated risk of violence compared to the general population, limited efforts have been invested in investigating the neurobiological etiology explaining the increase. Among the few studies examining functional disruptions pertaining to violent schizophrenia patients using fMRI, only one study has considered functional connectivity. The current state of knowledge does not allow to infer deficits in functional connectivity specific to distinct cognitive/emotional states that have been associated with the emergence of violence in schizophrenia, such as negative emotion processing.

Behavioral and Cognitive Impacts of Mindfulness-Based Interventions on Adults with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review.

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are becoming increasingly popular as treatments for physical and psychological problems. Recently, several studies have suggested that MBIs may also be effective in reducing symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Most studies have examined the effectiveness in children, but there are now a sufficient number of individual treatment trials to consider a systematic review in adults.

Impaired Coupling between the Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex and the Amygdala in Schizophrenia Smokers Viewing Anti-smoking Images.

Background: Cigarette smoking is highly prevalent in schizophrenia and is one of the main factors contributing to the significantly decreased life expectancy in this population. Schizophrenia smokers, compared to their counterparts with no comorbid psychiatric disorder, are largely unaware and indifferent to the long-term negative consequences of cigarette smoking. The objective of this study was to determine, for the first time, if these meta-cognitive deficits are associated with neuro-functional alterations in schizophrenia smokers.

Multisite generalizability of schizophrenia diagnosis classification based on functional brain connectivity.

Our objective was to assess the generalizability, across sites and cognitive contexts, of schizophrenia classification based on functional brain connectivity. We tested different training-test scenarios combining fMRI data from 191 schizophrenia patients and 191 matched healthy controls obtained at 6 scanning sites and under different task conditions. Diagnosis classification accuracy generalized well to a novel site and cognitive context provided data from multiple sites were used for classifier training.

[Emotional Memory and Electrocortical Activity in Schizophrenia].

Context Abnormal emotion processing is frequent in schizophrenia and affects social and functional outcome. Past event-related potential (ERP) research investigating processing of affective stimuli in schizophrenia was done mainly with facial expressions and revealed impaired facial emotion recognition in patients relative to control subjects. Experimentations involving fMRI with this group of patients, showed alteration of limbic and frontal regions in response to emotional unpleasant images, compared to neutral stimuli during a memory task.

Forethought in Youth with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: An fMRI Study of Sex-Specific Differences.

Objective. The majority of studies investigating neurocognitive processing in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been conducted on male participants. Few studies evaluated females or examined sex differences.

Abnormal effective fronto-limbic connectivity during emotion processing in schizophrenia.

Background: Schizophrenia is associated with core emotional dysfunctions. At the neural level, functional neuro-imaging studies have highlighted fronto-limbic alterations during emotion processing in schizophrenia, as well as impaired connectivity between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. However, the direction of the impaired fronto-limbic connections remains largely unknown.

Emotionally Neutral Stimuli Are Not Neutral in Schizophrenia: A Mini Review of Functional Neuroimaging Studies.

Reliable evidence shows that schizophrenia patients tend to experience negative emotions when presented with emotionally neutral stimuli. Similarly, several functional neuroimaging studies show that schizophrenia patients have increased activations in response to neutral material. However, results are heterogeneous.

Gonads and strife: Sex hormones vary according to sexual orientation for women and stress indices for both sexes.

This study assessed sexual orientation and psychobiological stress indices in relation to salivary sex hormones as part of a well-validated laboratory-based stress paradigm. Participants included 87 healthy adults that were on average 25 years old who self-identified as lesbian/bisexual women (n=20), heterosexual women (n=21), gay/bisexual men (n=26), and heterosexual men (n=20). Two saliva samples were collected fifteen minutes before and fifteen minutes after exposure to a modified Trier Social Stress Test to determine testosterone, estradiol, and progesterone concentrations via enzyme-immune assaying.

Anterior cingulate hyperactivations during negative emotion processing among men with schizophrenia and a history of violent behavior.

Background: Evidence suggests a 2.1-4.6 times increase in the risk of violent behavior in schizophrenia compared to the general population.

Altered brain connectivity in patients with schizophrenia is consistent across cognitive contexts.

Background: Schizophrenia has been defined as a dysconnection syndrome characterized by aberrant functional brain connectivity. Using task-based fMRI, we assessed to what extent the nature of the cognitive context may further modulate abnormal functional brain connectivity.

Methods: We analyzed data matched for motion in patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls who performed 3 different tasks.

Increased ventro-medial prefrontal activations in schizophrenia smokers during cigarette cravings.

Background: Highly prevalent in schizophrenia, tobacco smoking substantially increases the risk of cardiac-related death. Compared to the general population, tobacco smoking cessation rates are lower in schizophrenia. Unfortunately, the reasons for these low cessation rates remain poorly understood.

Sex/gender differences in the brain and cognition in schizophrenia.

The early conceptualizations of schizophrenia have noted some sex/gender differences in epidemiology and clinical expression of the disorder. Over the past few decades, the interest in differences between male and female patients has expanded to encompass brain morphology and neurocognitive function. Despite some variability and methodological shortcomings, a few patterns emerge from the available literature.

Cigarette Cravings, Impulsivity, and the Brain.

Craving is a core feature of tobacco use disorder as well as a significant predictor of smoking relapse. Studies have shown that appetitive smoking-related stimuli (e.g.

Sex differences in effective fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing.

Background: In view of the greater prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in women than in men, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have examined sex-differences in brain activations during emotion processing. Comparatively, sex-differences in brain connectivity received little attention, despite evidence for important fronto-limbic connections during emotion processing across sexes. Here, we investigated sex-differences in fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing.

Emotion processing in treatment-resistant schizophrenia patients treated with clozapine: An fMRI study.

Objectives: To examine the neural correlates of emotion processing in treatment-resistant patients with schizophrenia (SCZ-TR).

Methods: Twenty-two SCZ-TR patients on clozapine, 24 schizophrenia patients on antipsychotics other than clozapine, and 39 healthy controls were scanned using functional neuroimaging while viewing positive, negative and neutral images.

Results: Emotionally-laden images (positive and negative) elicited hyper-activations in the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex and left cerebellum in SCZ-TR patients, compared to the two other groups.

Sex, Age, Symptoms and Illness Duration and Their Relation with Gyrification Index in Schizophrenia.

Introduction: The Gyrification Index (GI) represents the degree of cortical folding and is of special interest in schizophrenia, since alterations in cortical folding indirectly reflect white matter development and axonal connectivity underneath. To the best of our knowledge, very few studies have investigated the effect of sex on GI in schizophrenia. Differences in the GI between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls and the relation between sex, age symptoms and duration of illness with GI were investigated.

[Are there any sex/gender differences in drug use and drug addiction?].

Drug use and drug addiction have been traditionally considered to be a male problem, however the gender gap has been decreasing over the past few decades. Thus, while the prevalence of alcohol, cannabis and nicotine dependence is still overall greater among men than among women, sex/gender differences in the abuse of stimulants and opiates seem to have disappeared. Moreover, women appear to be more prone to develop drug dependence, suffer more severe physical and psychological consequences of drug abuse, and have more difficulties quitting the habit.

Sex differences and menstrual cycle phase-dependent modulation of craving for cigarette: an FMRI pilot study.

While overall more men than women smoke cigarettes, women and girls take less time to become dependent after initial use and have more difficulties quitting the habit. One of the factors contributing to these differences may be that women crave cigarettes more than men and that their desire to smoke is influenced by hormonal fluctuations across the menstrual cycle. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was twofold: (a) to examine potential sex/gender differences in functional neuroanatomy of craving and to (b) delineate neural correlates of cigarette cravings in women across their menstrual cycle.