Anomalous network architecture of the resting brain in children who stutter.

Purpose: We combined a large longitudinal neuroimaging dataset that includes children who do and do not stutter and a whole-brain network analysis in order to examine the intra- and inter-network connectivity changes associated with stuttering. Additionally, we asked whether whole brain connectivity patterns observed at the initial year of scanning could predict persistent stuttering in later years.

Methods: A total of 224 high-quality resting state fMRI scans collected from 84 children (42 stuttering, 42 controls) were entered into an independent component analysis (ICA), yielding a number of distinct network connectivity maps ("components") as well as expression scores for each component that quantified the degree to which it is expressed for each child.

Growth Charting of Brain Connectivity Networks and the Identification of Attention Impairment in Youth.

Importance: Intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs), important units of brain functional organization, demonstrate substantial maturation during youth. In addition, interrelationships between ICNs have been reliably implicated in attention performance. It is unknown whether alterations in ICN maturational profiles can reliably detect impaired attention functioning in youth.

ALTERED DEFAULT MODE NETWORK (DMN) RESTING STATE FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY FOLLOWING A MINDFULNESS-BASED EXPOSURE THERAPY FOR POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER (PTSD) IN COMBAT VETERANS OF AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ.

Background: Recent studies suggest that mindfulness may be an effective component for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) treatment. Mindfulness involves practice in volitional shifting of attention from "mind wandering" to present-moment attention to sensations, and cultivating acceptance. We examined potential neural correlates of mindfulness training using a novel group therapy (mindfulness-based exposure therapy (MBET)) in combat veterans with PTSD deployed to Afghanistan (OEF) and/or Iraq (OIF).

Childhood Cumulative Risk Exposure and Adult Amygdala Volume and Function.

Considerable work indicates that early cumulative risk exposure is aversive to human development, but very little research has examined the neurological underpinnings of these robust findings. This study investigates amygdala volume and reactivity to facial stimuli among adults (mean 23.7 years of age, n = 54) as a function of cumulative risk exposure during childhood (9 and 13 years of age).

Childhood Poverty Predicts Adult Amygdala and Frontal Activity and Connectivity in Response to Emotional Faces.

Childhood poverty negatively impacts physical and mental health in adulthood. Altered brain development in response to social and environmental factors associated with poverty likely contributes to this effect, engendering maladaptive patterns of social attribution and/or elevated physiological stress. In this fMRI study, we examined the association between childhood poverty and neural processing of social signals (i.

SCALABLE FUSED LASSO SVM FOR CONNECTOME-BASED DISEASE PREDICTION.

There is substantial interest in developing machine-based methods that reliably distinguish patients from healthy controls using high dimensional correlation maps known as (FC's) generated from resting state fMRI. To address the dimensionality of FC's, the current body of work relies on feature selection techniques that are blind to the spatial structure of the data. In this paper, we propose to use the fused Lasso regularized support vector machine to explicitly account for the 6-D structure of the FC (defined by pairs of points in 3-D brain space).

Modality-spanning deficits in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in functional networks, gray matter, and white matter.

Previous neuroimaging investigations in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have separately identified distributed structural and functional deficits, but interconnections between these deficits have not been explored. To unite these modalities in a common model, we used joint independent component analysis, a multivariate, multimodal method that identifies cohesive components that span modalities. Based on recent network models of ADHD, we hypothesized that altered relationships between large-scale networks, in particular, default mode network (DMN) and task-positive networks (TPNs), would co-occur with structural abnormalities in cognitive regulation regions.

Effects of oxycodone on brain responses to emotional images.

Rationale: Evidence from animal and human studies suggests that opiate drugs decrease emotional responses to negative stimuli and increase responses to positive stimuli. Such emotional effects may motivate misuse of oxycodone (OXY), a widely abused opiate. Yet, we know little about how OXY affects neural circuits underlying emotional processing in humans.

Disease prediction based on functional connectomes using a scalable and spatially-informed support vector machine.

Substantial evidence indicates that major psychiatric disorders are associated with distributed neural dysconnectivity, leading to a strong interest in using neuroimaging methods to accurately predict disorder status. In this work, we are specifically interested in a multivariate approach that uses features derived from whole-brain resting state functional connectomes. However, functional connectomes reside in a high dimensional space, which complicates model interpretation and introduces numerous statistical and computational challenges.

Disrupted network architecture of the resting brain in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Background: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders of childhood. Neuroimaging investigations of ADHD have traditionally sought to detect localized abnormalities in discrete brain regions. Recent years, however, have seen the emergence of complementary lines of investigation into distributed connectivity disturbances in ADHD.

Volitional regulation of emotions produces distributed alterations in connectivity between visual, attention control, and default networks.

The ability to volitionally regulate emotions is critical to health and well-being. While patterns of neural activation during emotion regulation have been well characterized, patterns of connectivity between regions remain less explored. It is increasingly recognized that the human brain is organized into large-scale intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs) whose interrelationships are altered in characteristic ways during psychological tasks.

Effects of childhood poverty and chronic stress on emotion regulatory brain function in adulthood.

Childhood poverty has pervasive negative physical and psychological health sequelae in adulthood. Exposure to chronic stressors may be one underlying mechanism for childhood poverty-health relations by influencing emotion regulatory systems. Animal work and human cross-sectional studies both suggest that chronic stressor exposure is associated with amygdala and prefrontal cortex regions important for emotion regulation.

The caudate signals bad reputation during trust decisions.

The ability to initiate and sustain trust is critical to health and well-being. Willingness to trust is in part determined by the reputation of the putative trustee, gained via direct interactions or indirectly through word of mouth. Few studies have examined how the reputation of others is instantiated in the brain during trust decisions.

Distributed effects of methylphenidate on the network structure of the resting brain: a connectomic pattern classification analysis.

Methylphenidate is a psychostimulant medication that produces improvements in functions associated with multiple neurocognitive systems. To investigate the potentially distributed effects of methylphenidate on the brain's intrinsic network architecture, we coupled resting state imaging with multivariate pattern classification. In a within-subject, double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, counterbalanced, cross-over design, 32 healthy human volunteers received either methylphenidate or placebo prior to two fMRI resting state scans separated by approximately one week.

Aberrant reward center response to partner reputation during a social exchange game in generalized social phobia.

Objective: Generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD) is characterized by excessive fear of public scrutiny and reticence in social engagement. Previous studies have probed the neural basis of GSAD often using static, noninteractive stimuli (e.g.

Neural substrates of alcohol-induced smoking urge in heavy drinking nondaily smokers.

A strong link exists between cigarette smoking and alcohol use, which may be explained by the experimental observation that alcohol ingestion promotes cigarette craving and precipitates smoking. At the neuroanatomic level, it is unclear where and how alcohol exerts these effects, although the process likely involves the ventral striatum given its function in motivational salience and appetitive reinforcement. In a double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover study, heavy drinking nondaily social smokers (ie, light smokers or 'chippers') were examined using functional magnetic resonance imaging after they ingested an acute dose of alcohol or placebo.