Publications by authors named "Nhat Trung Doan"

Frailty is a dementia risk factor commonly measured by a frailty index (FI). The standard procedure for creating an FI requires manually selecting health deficit items and lacks criteria for selection optimization. We hypothesized that refining the item selection using data-driven assessment improves sensitivity to cognitive status and future dementia conversion, and compared the predictive value of three FIs: a standard 93-item FI was created after selecting health deficit items according to standard criteria (FI) from the ADNI database.

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Article Synopsis
  • The human brain evolves over time, with changes in structure affecting mental health and diseases throughout life.
  • This study identifies genetic variants that influence brain growth and shrinkage, using data from 15,640 individuals and focusing on 15 brain structures.
  • Key genes linked to metabolism were found, highlighting connections to conditions like depression and schizophrenia, and suggesting that understanding these genetic factors could lead to insights about healthy and problematic brain development and aging.
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Schizophrenia is associated with widespread alterations in subcortical brain structure. While analytic methods have enabled more detailed morphometric characterization, findings are often equivocal. In this meta-analysis, we employed the harmonized ENIGMA shape analysis protocols to collaboratively investigate subcortical brain structure shape differences between individuals with schizophrenia and healthy control participants.

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Delineating the association of age and cortical thickness in healthy individuals is critical given the association of cortical thickness with cognition and behavior. Previous research has shown that robust estimates of the association between age and brain morphometry require large-scale studies. In response, we used cross-sectional data from 17,075 individuals aged 3-90 years from the Enhancing Neuroimaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium to infer age-related changes in cortical thickness.

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Age has a major effect on brain volume. However, the normative studies available are constrained by small sample sizes, restricted age coverage and significant methodological variability. These limitations introduce inconsistencies and may obscure or distort the lifespan trajectories of brain morphometry.

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Background: Schizophrenia (SZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) share substantial neurodevelopmental components affecting brain maturation and architecture. This necessitates a dynamic lifespan perspective in which brain aberrations are inferred from deviations from expected lifespan trajectories. We applied machine learning to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) indices of white matter structure and organization to estimate and compare brain age between patients with SZ, patients with BD, and healthy control (HC) subjects across 10 cohorts.

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The restructuring and optimization of the cerebral cortex from early childhood and through adolescence is an essential feature of human brain development, underlying immense cognitive improvements. Beyond established morphometric cortical assessments, the T1w/T2w ratio quantifies partly separate biological processes, and might inform models of typical neurocognitive development and developmental psychopathology. In the present study, we computed vertex-wise T1w/T2w ratio across the cortical surface in 621 youths (3-21 years) sampled from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition, and Genetics (PING) study and tested for associations with individual differences in age, sex, and both general and specific cognitive abilities.

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Human brain development involves spatially and temporally heterogeneous changes, detectable across a wide range of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures. Investigating the interplay between multimodal MRI and polygenic scores (PGS) for personality traits associated with mental disorders in youth may provide new knowledge about typical and atypical neurodevelopment. We derived independent components across cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and grey/white matter contrast (GWC) (n = 2596, 3-23 years), and tested for associations between these components and age, sex and-, in a subsample (n = 878), PGS for neuroticism.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists studied the brain's outer layer, called the cerebral cortex, to learn how genes can affect its structure.
  • They looked at brain scans from over 51,000 people and found 199 important genetic markers that relate to how the cortex is shaped.
  • The study showed that these genetic markers are linked to different brain functions and conditions like thinking skills, sleep problems, and ADHD.
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  • Sensitivity to external environments is crucial for adaptation, but it can also lead to negative effects in bad conditions.
  • This study uses a new method to analyze genetic and neuroanatomical data from 25,575 individuals to explore variability in key brain features.
  • Findings reveal specific genetic loci linked to differences in thalamus volume and cortical thickness, highlighting a genetic basis for brain structure variability and its implications for brain and mental health research.
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  • Subcortical brain structures play key roles in motion, emotions, learning, and consciousness, and their volumes are influenced by genetic variations.
  • A study analyzed nearly 40,000 individuals, discovering that variations in the volumes of key brain regions are heritable and identified 48 genetic loci linked to these volumes, with 40 being previously unknown.
  • The identified genes are connected to various biological processes, suggesting they could be crucial for understanding brain development, neurological disorders, and possible drug targets.
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Common risk factors for psychiatric and other brain disorders are likely to converge on biological pathways influencing the development and maintenance of brain structure and function across life. Using structural MRI data from 45,615 individuals aged 3-96 years, we demonstrate distinct patterns of apparent brain aging in several brain disorders and reveal genetic pleiotropy between apparent brain aging in healthy individuals and common brain disorders.

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Importance: Between-individual variability in brain structure is determined by gene-environment interactions, possibly reflecting differential sensitivity to environmental and genetic perturbations. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have revealed thinner cortices and smaller subcortical volumes in patients with schizophrenia. However, group-level comparisons may mask considerable within-group heterogeneity, which has largely remained unnoticed in the literature.

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Objectives: Previous studies found evidence for thinner frontotemporal cortices in bipolar disorder (BD), yet whether this represents a stable disease trait or an effect of mood episodes remains unknown. Here, we assessed the reproducibility of thinner frontotemporal cortices in BD type II, compared longitudinal changes in cortical thickness between individuals with BD type II and healthy controls (HCs), and examined the effect of mood episodes on cortical thickness change.

Methods: Thirty-three HCs and 29 individuals with BD type II underwent 3T magnetic resonance imaging at baseline, as published previously, and 2.

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Background: Accumulating evidence supports cerebellar involvement in mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. However, little is known about the cerebellum in developmental stages of these disorders. In particular, whether cerebellar morphology is associated with early expression of specific symptom domains remains unclear.

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Prior to and following the publication of this article the authors noted that the complete list of authors was not included in the main article and was only present in Supplementary Table 1. The author list in the original article has now been updated to include all authors, and Supplementary Table 1 has been removed. All other supplementary files have now been updated accordingly.

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Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder characterized by numerous subtle changes in brain structure and function. Machine learning allows exploring the utility of combining structural and functional brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measures for diagnostic application, but this approach has been hampered by sample size limitations and lack of differential diagnostic data. Here, we performed a multi-site machine learning analysis to explore brain structural patterns of T1 MRI data in 2668 individuals with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder, and healthy controls.

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Multimodal imaging enables sensitive measures of the architecture and integrity of the human brain, but the high-dimensional nature of advanced brain imaging features poses inherent challenges for the analyses and interpretations. Multivariate age prediction reduces the dimensionality to one biologically informative summary measure with potential for assessing deviations from normal lifespan trajectories. A number of studies documented remarkably accurate age prediction, but the differential age trajectories and the cognitive sensitivity of distinct brain tissue classes have yet to be adequately characterized.

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Background: Cerebral myeloarchitecture shows substantial development across childhood and adolescence, and aberrations in these trajectories are relevant for a range of mental disorders. Differential myelination between intracortical and subjacent white matter can be approximated using signal intensities in T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging.

Methods: To test the sensitivity of gray/white matter contrast (GWC) to age and individual differences in psychopathology and general cognitive ability in youths (8-23 years), we formed data-driven psychopathology and cognitive components using a large population-based sample, the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (N = 6487, 52% female).

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Importance: Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are severe and complex brain disorders characterized by substantial clinical and biological heterogeneity. However, case-control studies often ignore such heterogeneity through their focus on the average patient, which may be the core reason for a lack of robust biomarkers indicative of an individual's treatment response and outcome.

Objectives: To investigate the degree to which case-control analyses disguise interindividual differences in brain structure among patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and to map the brain alterations linked to these disorders at the level of individual patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • Carriers of the 16p11.2 distal CNV have an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and schizophrenia, prompting an investigation into their brain structure.
  • A study compared brain volumes of 12 deletion and 12 duplication carriers against 6882 non-carriers, revealing negative associations between CNV copy number and volumes of several key brain regions.
  • Results indicated that both deletion and duplication carriers had lower full-scale IQs compared to non-carriers, highlighting distinct structural brain alterations linked to 16p11.2 CNV that may contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders.
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The hippocampus is a heterogeneous structure, comprising histologically distinguishable subfields. These subfields are differentially involved in memory consolidation, spatial navigation and pattern separation, complex functions often impaired in individuals with brain disorders characterized by reduced hippocampal volume, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia. Given the structural and functional heterogeneity of the hippocampal formation, we sought to characterize the subfields' genetic architecture.

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Supported by histological and genetic evidence implicating myelin, neuroinflammation and oligodendrocyte dysfunction in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SZ), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies have consistently shown white matter (WM) abnormalities when compared to healthy controls (HC). The diagnostic specificity remains unclear, with bipolar disorders (BD) frequently conceptualized as a less severe clinical manifestation along a psychotic spectrum. Further, the age-related dynamics and possible sex differences of WM abnormalities in SZ and BD are currently understudied.

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Bipolar disorders (BDs) are among the leading causes of morbidity and disability. Objective biological markers, such as those based on brain imaging, could aid in clinical management of BD. Machine learning (ML) brings neuroimaging analyses to individual subject level and may potentially allow for their diagnostic use.

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