Publications by authors named "Monte-Rubio G"

Article Synopsis
  • There is increasing research into how Long-COVID affects cognitive functions, utilizing neuroimaging to understand the underlying brain changes in patients experiencing cognitive impairment.
  • A study using advanced brain imaging techniques on 53 Long-COVID patients revealed significant cognitive deficits, particularly in executive functions and attention, with some correlations found between brain structure and memory performance.
  • The results suggest that Long-COVID is associated with lasting cognitive impairments due to altered brain structure and connectivity, highlighting the importance of understanding these changes for patient care.
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Background And Purpose: There is a paucity of data on long-term neuroimaging findings from individuals who have developed the post-coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) condition. Only 2 studies have investigated the correlations between cognitive assessment results and structural MR imaging in this population. This study aimed to elucidate the long-term cognitive outcomes of participants with the post-COVID-19 condition and to correlate these cognitive findings with structural MR imaging data in the post-COVID-19 condition.

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Clinical, cognitive, and atrophy characteristics depending on sex have been previously reported in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, though sex differences in cortical gray matter measures in early drug naïve patients have been described, little is known about differences in cortical thickness (CTh) as the disease advances. Our multi-site sample comprised 211 non-demented PD patients (64.

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Lifestyle interventions have positive neuroprotective effects in aging. However, there are still open questions about how changes in resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) contribute to cognitive improvements. The Projecte Moviment is a 12-week randomized controlled trial of a multimodal data acquisition protocol that investigated the effects of aerobic exercise (AE), computerized cognitive training (CCT), and their combination (COMB).

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Introduction: This is a 12-weeks randomized controlled trial examining the effects of aerobic exercise (AE), computerized cognitive training (CCT) and their combination (COMB). We aim to investigate their impact on cardiovascular health and white matter (WM) integrity and how they contribute to the cognitive benefits.

Methods: 109 participants were recruited and 82 (62% female; age = 58.

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Objective: This research aims to study structural brain changes in patients with persistent olfactory dysfunctions after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Methods: COVID-19 patients were evaluated using T1-weighted and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) on a 3T MRI scanner, 9.94 ± 3.

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Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) is associated with high likelihood of prodromal Parkinson's disease (PD) and is common in de novo PD. It is associated with greater cognitive impairment and brain atrophy. However, the relation between structural brain characteristics and cognition remains poorly understood.

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Brain atrophy and cognitive impairment in neurodegenerative diseases are influenced by sex. We aimed to investigate sex differences in brain atrophy and cognition in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients. Clinical, neuropsychological and T1-weighted MRI data from 205 PD patients (127 males: 78 females) and 69 healthy controls (40 males: 29 females) were obtained from the PPMI dataset.

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Background And Purpose: Multiple system atrophy(MSA) is a rare adult-onset synucleinopathy that can be divided in two subtypes depending on whether the prevalence of its symptoms is more parkinsonian or cerebellar (MSA-P and MSA-C, respectively). The aim of this work is to investigate the structural MRI changes able to discriminate MSA phenotypes.

Methods: The sample includes 31 MSA patients (15 MSA-C and 16 MSA-P) and 39 healthy controls.

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Background: To explore whether the combination of white matter hyperintensities (WMHs) and amyloid-beta (Aβ) deposition is associated with worse cognitive performance on cognitive composites (CCs) domain scores in individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD).

Methods: Two hundred participants from the FACEHBI cohort underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), F-florbetaben positron emission tomography (FBB-PET), and neuropsychological assessment. WMHs were addressed through the Fazekas scale, the Age-Related White Matter Changes (ARWMC) scale, and the FreeSurfer pipeline.

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Background: The presence of rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD) contributes to increase cognitive impairment and brain atrophy in Parkinson's disease (PD), but the impact of sex is unclear. We aimed to investigate sex differences in cognition and brain atrophy in PD patients with and without probable RBD (pRBD).

Methods: Magnetic resonance imaging and cognition data were obtained for 274 participants from the Parkinson's Progression Marker Initiative database: 79 PD with pRBD (PD-pRBD; male/female, 54/25), 126 PD without pRBD (PD-non pRBD; male/female, 73/53), and 69 healthy controls (male/female, 40/29).

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Probabilistic tractography, in combination with graph theory, has been used to reconstruct the structural whole-brain connectome. Threshold-free network-based statistics (TFNBS) is a useful technique to study structural connectivity in neurodegenerative disorders; however, there are no previous studies using TFNBS in Parkinson's disease (PD) with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Sixty-two PD patients, 27 of whom classified as PD-MCI, and 51 healthy controls (HC) underwent diffusion-weighted 3T magnetic resonance imaging.

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Previous studies have shown that the gene encoding the adhesion G protein-coupled receptor L3 (ADGRL3; formerly latrophilin 3, LPHN3) is associated with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Conversely, no studies have investigated the anatomical or functional brain substrates of ADGRL3 risk variants. We examined here whether individuals with different ADGRL3 haplotypes, including both patients with ADHD and healthy controls, showed differences in brain anatomy and function.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the link between executive function deficits and brain changes in individuals with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) related to Alzheimer's disease.
  • It involves 195 SCD participants who completed various executive function tests and underwent brain imaging to assess amyloid beta deposition and brain volume.
  • Findings indicate that reduced performance on the Automatic Inhibition test correlates with higher amyloid levels and reduced brain volume in critical areas like the hippocampus, suggesting a potential early detection method for Alzheimer’s in those with SCD.
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  • Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has been used to measure retinal thickness in patients with subjective cognitive decline (SCD), revealing that these individuals may show retinal layer thinning, which is associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD).
  • The study involved 129 SCD participants who underwent OCT and PET scans to examine the link between retinal thickness and amyloid-β accumulation over two years.
  • Results indicated that greater thickness in the inner nasal macular region correlates with higher likelihood of amyloid-β positivity, yet no retinal measurements predicted conversion to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) during the study period.
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Echocardiography has become an indispensable tool for the study of heart performance, improving the monitoring of individuals with cardiac diseases. Diverse genetic factors associated with echocardiographic measures have been previously reported. The impact of several apoptotic genes in heart development identified in experimental models prompted us to assess their potential association with human cardiac function.

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Article Synopsis
  • Alzheimer's disease (AD) presents significant variability among cases, complicating genetic research and understanding biological mechanisms.
  • The GR@ACE study categorized known AD genetic loci into three groups based on clinical certainty and vascular influence, using gene coexpression and pathway analysis.
  • Meta-analysis identified new genetic signals associated with AD, highlighting the importance of vascular regulation and the impact of clinical heterogeneity on genetic findings.
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  • Visual impairment is prevalent among individuals with dementia, and regular eye exams can enhance their quality of life.
  • A study involving 1,746 elderly participants found that those with dementia had significantly poorer visual acuity and used fewer visual correction treatments than those with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) or mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
  • The quality of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images also declined with cognitive impairment, indicating the need for consistent eye care in dementia patients to address visual issues.
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Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) YKL40 and sTREM2 are astroglial and microglial activity biomarkers, respectively. We assessed whether CSF YKL40 and sTREM2 baseline levels are associated with longitudinal brain volume and diffusivity changes in cognitively unimpaired adults. Two brain MRI scans of 36 participants (57 to 78-years old, 12 male) were acquired in a 2-year interval.

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Article Synopsis
  • A polymorphism in the BDNF gene worsens the impact of beta-amyloid on neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease, highlighting BDNF's role in cognitive impairment.
  • Using fMRI, researchers found that individuals carrying the BDNF polymorphism showed significantly reduced connectivity between the hippocampus and medial-frontal regions compared to non-carriers.
  • This decreased connectivity was also linked to poorer cognitive performance in various groups, suggesting that BDNF may influence how AD pathology affects brain networks related to cognition.
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Background: Peripheral biomarkers that identify individuals at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) or predicting high amyloid beta (Aβ) brain burden would be highly valuable. To facilitate clinical trials of disease-modifying therapies, plasma concentrations of Aβ species are good candidates for peripheral AD biomarkers, but studies to date have generated conflicting results.

Methods: The Fundació ACE Healthy Brain Initiative (FACEHBI) study uses a convenience sample of 200 individuals diagnosed with subjective cognitive decline (SCD) at the Fundació ACE (Barcelona, Spain) who underwent amyloid florbetaben(F) (FBB) positron emission tomography (PET) brain imaging.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigated how genetic markers linked to Alzheimer's disease (AD) relate to cognitive traits (neurocognitive endophenotypes) in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), focusing on various types of MCI, including amnestic and non-amnestic forms.
  • - Researchers analyzed genetic data from 1,245 MCI patients and adjusted for factors like age, gender, and education to find significant associations between the ε4 allele and memory functions like delayed recall and learning.
  • - Validation was conducted using data from additional studies, confirming that the ε4 allele and other specific genetic variants are linked to cognitive performance in MCI patients, highlighting potential genetic influences on the cognitive decline associated with early Alzheimer's disease.
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Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by an accumulation of β-amyloid (Aβ) accompanied by brain atrophy and cognitive decline. Several recent studies have shown that Aβ accumulation is associated with gray matter (GM) changes prior to the development of cognitive impairment, in the so-called preclinical stage of the AD (pre-AD). It also has been proved that the GM atrophy profile is not linear, both in normal ageing but, especially, on AD.

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There is a widespread interest in applying pattern recognition methods to anatomical neuroimaging data, but so far, there has been relatively little investigation into how best to derive image features in order to make the most accurate predictions. In this work, a Gaussian Process machine learning approach was used for predicting age, gender and body mass index (BMI) of subjects in the IXI dataset, as well as age, gender and diagnostic status using the ABIDE and COBRE datasets. MRI data were segmented and aligned using SPM12, and a variety of feature representations were derived from this preprocessing.

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Structural imaging studies of cannabis users have found evidence of both cortical and subcortical volume reductions, especially in cannabinoid receptor-rich regions such as the hippocampus and amygdala. However, the findings have not been consistent. In the present study, we examined a sample of adult heavy cannabis users without other substance abuse to determine whether long-term use is associated with brain structural changes, especially in the subcortical regions.

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