Publications by authors named "Paul E Rasser"

Article Synopsis
  • Structural neuroimaging studies reveal both common and disorder-specific gray matter deficits across various psychiatric conditions.
  • Large-scale data pooling helps identify potential neuroanatomical factors linked to mental illness vulnerability, although data-sharing faces significant challenges.
  • Using a federated analysis across eight research sites, the study found overlapping gray matter patterns in schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder, suggesting shared cortical and subcortical vulnerabilities.
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Article Synopsis
  • Schizophrenia is characterized by significant changes in brain structure, but it's not clear if these changes relate to the brain's network organization.
  • Researchers analyzed MRI scans from nearly 2,500 people with schizophrenia alongside healthy controls to see how structural changes connect to brain networks.
  • The study found that certain regions in the brain that are crucial for connectivity are more affected in schizophrenia, indicating a link between brain network vulnerability and the disease's impact, with some similarities to bipolar disorder but not major depressive disorder.
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Background: Studies to date examining cortical thickness and surface area in young individuals At Risk Mental State (ARMS) of developing psychosis have revealed inconsistent findings, either reporting increased, decreased or no differences compared to mentally healthy individuals. The inconsistencies may be attributed to small sample sizes, varying age ranges, different ARMS identification criteria, lack of control for recreational substance use and antipsychotic pharmacotherapy, as well as different methods for deriving morphological brain measures.

Methods: A surfaced-based approach was employed to calculate fronto-temporal cortical grey matter thickness and surface area derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data collected from 44 young antipsychotic-naïve ARMS individuals, 19 young people with recent onset schizophrenia, and 36 age-matched healthy volunteers.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the structural brain differences in individuals with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls, focusing on various brain metrics like cortical thickness and subcortical volume using a large international dataset.
  • Results show that people with schizophrenia have greater variability in brain structure, particularly in the frontotemporal regions, suggesting distinct subtypes of the disorder may exist.
  • The findings highlight the significance of understanding brain structure variability to improve knowledge of schizophrenia and help identify potential biomarkers for the illness.
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  • The study looked at how the brain's left and right sides might differ in people with schizophrenia compared to those without it, using brain scans from over 5,000 patients and 6,000 control subjects.
  • Researchers found that people with schizophrenia had slightly thinner areas in the left side of their brains, especially in certain regions, compared to those without the disorder.
  • The differences in brain structure might be linked to how schizophrenia affects brain functions, like language, but more research is needed to understand why they happen.
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  • Schizophrenia can make the brain age faster, leading to more cognitive problems and health issues.
  • A study looked at brain scans of 2,803 people with schizophrenia and 2,598 healthy people to see how much older their brains looked compared to their actual ages.
  • The results showed that people with schizophrenia had brains that looked about 3.55 years older than they should be, but this wasn’t linked to how long they had the illness or how severe their symptoms were.
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  • The study examines the differences in the morphology of the human cerebral cortex across various psychiatric disorders, suggesting that early growth patterns in the cortex may influence later variations in surface area and mental health outcomes.
  • Using data from over 27,000 MRI scans, researchers identified significant differences in cortical area among individuals with conditions like ADHD, schizophrenia, and major depression, particularly in association cortices linked to cognitive processing.
  • The findings indicate a correlation between these structural differences and prenatal gene expression related to cell types important for brain development, highlighting how prenatal factors may play a crucial role in the risk of developing mental illnesses.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The ENIGMA initiative focuses on identifying neurobiological markers that indicate the risk of developing psychosis, utilizing the largest neuroimaging sample of individuals classified as clinically high risk (CHR) so far.
  • - A study analyzed baseline MRI data from 3169 participants across 31 international sites, comparing structural brain differences between CHR individuals and healthy controls, as well as between those who later developed psychosis (CHR-PS+) and those who did not (CHR-PS-).
  • - Results showed that CHR individuals had significantly lower cortical thickness in certain brain regions compared to healthy controls, indicating potential neurobiological changes linked to the progression to psychosis.
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Article Synopsis
  • - Large-scale neuroimaging studies show differences in cortical thickness in various psychiatric disorders, but the biological reasons for these differences are not fully understood.
  • - The study aimed to identify neurobiological correlates of cortical thickness variations between affected individuals and controls across six disorders: ADHD, ASD, BD, MDD, OCD, and schizophrenia.
  • - Using data from 145 cohorts and advanced imaging techniques, the analysis revealed distinct patterns of cortical thickness associated with specific gene expressions in disorders, involving a total of over 28,000 participants.
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Objective: Schizophrenia has recently been associated with widespread white matter microstructural abnormalities, but the functional effects of these abnormalities remain unclear. Widespread heterogeneity of results from studies published to date preclude any definitive characterization of the relationship between white matter and cognitive performance in schizophrenia. Given the relevance of deficits in cognitive function to predicting social and functional outcomes in schizophrenia, the authors carried out a meta-analysis of available data through the ENIGMA Consortium, using a common analysis pipeline, to elucidate the relationship between white matter microstructure and a measure of general cognitive performance, IQ, in patients with schizophrenia and healthy participants.

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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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We organized 10Kin1day, a pop-up scientific event with the goal to bring together neuroimaging groups from around the world to jointly analyze 10,000+ existing MRI connectivity datasets during a 3-day workshop. In this report, we describe the motivation and principles of 10Kin1day, together with a public release of 8,000+ MRI connectome maps of the human brain.

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The human cerebellum plays an essential role in motor control, is involved in cognitive function (i.e., attention, working memory, and language), and helps to regulate emotional responses.

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Background: The profile of cortical neuroanatomical abnormalities in schizophrenia is not fully understood, despite hundreds of published structural brain imaging studies. This study presents the first meta-analysis of cortical thickness and surface area abnormalities in schizophrenia conducted by the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Schizophrenia Working Group.

Methods: The study included data from 4474 individuals with schizophrenia (mean age, 32.

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Occipital sources of resting-state electroencephalographic (EEG) alpha rhythms are abnormal, at the group level, in patients with amnesic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here, we evaluated the hypothesis that amplitude of these occipital sources is related to neurodegeneration in occipital lobe as measured by magnetic resonance imaging. Resting-state eyes-closed EEG rhythms were recorded in 45 healthy elderly (Nold), 100 MCI, and 90 AD subjects.

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Mismatch negativity (MMN) is a component of the event-related potential elicited by deviant auditory stimuli. It is presumed to index pre-attentive monitoring of changes in the auditory environment. MMN amplitude is smaller in groups of individuals with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls.

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Background: Gray matter atrophy is regarded as a valid marker of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease (AD), but few studies have investigated in detail the topographic changes associated with normal aging. In addition, few studies have compared the changes in the earliest clinical stage of AD (prodromal AD (pAD)) with those of healthy aging. Here we aimed to investigate the topographical distribution of age-related cortical atrophy and to compare it with that associated with prodromal and estabilished AD.

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Psychopathy is characterized by abnormal emotional processes, but only recent neuroimaging studies have investigated its cerebral correlates. The study aim was to map local differences of cortical and amygdalar morphology. Cortical pattern matching and radial distance mapping techniques were used to analyze the magnetic resonance images of 26 violent male offenders (age: 32±8) with psychopathy diagnosed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) and no schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and in matched controls (age: 35± sp="0.

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Epidemiological data link adolescent cannabis use to psychosis and schizophrenia, but its contribution to schizophrenia neuropathology remains controversial. First-episode schizophrenia (FES) patients show regional cerebral grey- and white-matter changes as well as a distinct pattern of regional grey-matter loss in the vermis of the cerebellum. The cerebellum possesses a high density of cannabinoid type 1 receptors involved in the neuronal diversification of the developing brain.

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Objective: Although several lines of evidence implicate gray matter abnormalities in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in patients with bipolar disorder, findings have been largely inconsistent across studies. Differences in patients' medication status or mood state or the application of traditional volumetric methods that are insensitive to subtle neuroanatomical differences may have contributed to variations in findings. The authors used MRI in conjunction with cortical pattern matching methods to assess cortical thickness abnormalities in euthymic bipolar patients who were not receiving lithium treatment.

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Prior studies reported that the hippocampal volume is smaller in Alzheimer's disease patients carrying the Apolipoprotein E ε4 allele (APOE4) versus patients who are non-carriers of this allele. This effect however has not been detected consistently, possibly because of the regionally-specific involvement of the hippocampal formation in Alzheimer's disease. The aim of this study was to analyze the local effect of APOE4 on hippocampal atrophy in Alzheimer's disease patients.

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Recent evidence suggests that putting feelings into words activates the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and suppresses the response of the amygdala, potentially helping to alleviate emotional distress. To further elucidate the relationship between brain structure and function in these regions, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were collected from a sample of 20 healthy human subjects. Structural MRI data were processed using cortical pattern-matching algorithms to produce spatially normalized maps of cortical thickness.

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Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is defined by memory impairment with no impact on daily activities. 10 to 15% of MCI convert to Alzheimer's disease (AD) per year. While structural changes in the cortex of AD patients have been extensively investigated, fewer studies analyzed changes in the years preceding conversion.

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Objectives: Cognitive impairment is prevalent in older schizophrenia patients but its biological basis is unknown. Neuropathological studies have not revealed Alzheimer disease (AD) lesion burden but in vivo data are lacking.

Method: We investigated the concentrations of CSF biomarkers of brain amyloidosis (Abeta42) and neurodegeneration (total and p-tau) in a group of older schizophrenia patients and related them to cognitive and MRI measures.

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