Improvisational Movement to Improve Quality of Life in Older Adults With Early-Stage Dementia: A Pilot Study.

Alzheimer's disease has profound effects on quality of life, affecting not only cognition, but mobility and opportunities for social engagement. Dance is a form of movement that may be uniquely suited to help maintain quality of life for older adults, including those with dementia, because it inherently incorporates movement, social engagement, and cognitive stimulation. Here, we describe the methods and results of the pilot study for the IMOVE trial (NCT03333837, www.

Sex Comparisons of In Vivo Anterior Cruciate Ligament Morphometry.

Context: Females have consistently higher anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury rates than males. The reasons for this disparity are not fully understood. Whereas ACL morphometric characteristics are associated with injury risk and females have a smaller absolute ACL size, comprehensive sex comparisons that adequately account for sex differences in body mass index (BMI) have been limited.

Relationships of hamstring muscle volumes to lateral tibial slope.

Background: Greater posterior-inferior directed slope of the lateral tibial plateau (LTS) has been demonstrated to be a prospective ACL injury risk factor. Trainable measures to overcome a greater LTS need to be identified for optimizing injury prevention protocols. It was hypothesized that Healthy individuals with greater LTS who have not sustained an ACL injury would have a larger lateral hamstring volume.

Bilateral quadriceps and hamstrings muscle volume asymmetries in healthy individuals.

Determining the magnitude of quadriceps and hamstring muscle volume asymmetries in healthy individuals is a critical first step toward interpreting asymmetries as compensatory or abnormal in pathological populations. The purpose of this study was to determine the magnitude of whole and individual muscle volume asymmetries, quantified as right-left volume differences, for the quadriceps and hamstring muscles in a young and healthy population. Twenty-one healthy individuals participated: Eleven females age = 22.

Evaluation of knee cartilage thickness: A comparison between ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging methods.

Background: Establishing clinically accessible measures of cartilage health is critical for assessing effectiveness of protocols to reduce risk of osteoarthritis (OA) development and progression. Cartilage thickness is one important measure in describing both OA development and progression. The objective was to determine the relationship between ultrasound and MRI measures of cartilage thickness in the medial femoral condyle.

The relationship between nernst equilibrium variability and the multifractality of interspike intervals in the hippocampus.

Spatiotemporal patterns of action potentials are considered to be closely related to information processing in the brain. Auto-generating neurons contributing to these processing tasks are known to cause multifractal behavior in the inter-spike intervals of the output action potentials. In this paper we define a novel relationship between this multifractality and the adaptive Nernst equilibrium in hippocampal neurons.

Quantitative Analysis of Three-Dimensional Distribution and Clustering of Intramuscular Fat in Muscles of the Rotator Cuff.

The purpose of this study was to (1) develop and present a technique to quantitatively assess three-dimensional distribution and clustering of intramuscular fat and (2) use the technique to compare spatial characteristics of intramuscular fat in rotator cuff muscles of older adults with and without a supraspinatus tear. Moran's Index (I), an existing quantitative measure of clustering, was extended for use with MRI to allow comparisons across individuals with different size muscles. Sixteen older adults (>60 years) with (N = 6) and without (N = 10) a degenerative supraspinatus tear participated.

Distinguishing cognitive state with multifractal complexity of hippocampal interspike interval sequences.

Fractality, represented as self-similar repeating patterns, is ubiquitous in nature and the brain. Dynamic patterns of hippocampal spike trains are known to exhibit multifractal properties during working memory processing; however, it is unclear whether the multifractal properties inherent to hippocampal spike trains reflect active cognitive processing. To examine this possibility, hippocampal neuronal ensembles were recorded from rats before, during and after a spatial working memory task following administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a memory-impairing component of cannabis.

Assessments of Fatty Infiltration and Muscle Atrophy From a Single Magnetic Resonance Image Slice Are Not Predictive of 3-Dimensional Measurements.

Purpose: To (1) determine whether standard clinical muscle fatty infiltration and atrophy assessment techniques using a single image slice for patients with a rotator cuff tear (RCT) are correlated with 3-dimensional measures in older individuals (60+ years) and (2) to determine whether age-associated changes to muscle morphology and strength are compounded by an RCT.

Methods: Twenty older individuals were studied: 10 with an RCT of the supraspinatus (5 men and 5 women) and 10 matched controls. Clinical imaging assessments (Goutallier and Fuchs scores and cross-sectional area ratio) were performed for participants with RCTs.

Long term sertraline effects on neural structures in depressed and nondepressed adult female nonhuman primates.

Background: Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are widely prescribed for mood and other disorders. However, their neural effects are difficult to study due to patient compliance and drug history variability, and rarely studied in those prescribed SSRIs for non-mood disorders. Here we evaluated SSRI effects on neural volumetrics in depressed and nondepressed monkeys.

Brain mechanisms supporting violated expectations of pain.

The subjective experience of pain is influenced by interactions between experiences, future predictions, and incoming afferent information. Expectations of high pain can exacerbate pain, whereas expectations of low pain during a consistently noxious stimulus can produce significant reductions in pain. However, the brain mechanisms associated with processing mismatches between expected and experienced pain are poorly understood, but are important for imparting salience to a sensory event to override erroneous top-down expectancy-mediated information.

Scratching Induces Overactivity in Motor-Related Regions and Reward System in Chronic Itch Patients.

Scratching evokes a rewarding and pleasurable sensation, particularly in chronic itch patients. To date, no study has investigated the cerebral activity during scratching in chronic itch patients and whether it differs from that in healthy subjects. Using arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance imaging, we analyzed and compared the cerebral mechanism of self-scratching and its correlation with pleasurability in 10 patients with chronic itch and in 10 healthy controls.

The effects of chronic alcohol self-administration in nonhuman primate brain networks.

Background: Long-term alcohol abuse is associated with change in behavior, brain structure, and brain function. However, the nature of these changes is not well understood. In this study, we used network science to analyze a nonhuman primate model of ethanol self-administration to evaluate functional differences between animals with chronic alcohol use and animals with no exposure to alcohol.

Dose equations for shift-variant CT acquisition modes using variable pitch, tube current, and aperture, and the meaning of their associated CTDI(vol).

Purpose: With the increasing clinical use of shift-variant CT protocols involving tube current modulation (TCM), variable pitch or pitch modulation (PM), and variable aperture a(t), the interpretation of the scanner-reported CTDI(vol) is called into question. This was addressed for TCM in their previous paper published by Dixon and Boone [Med. Phys.

Butorphanol suppression of histamine itch is mediated by nucleus accumbens and septal nuclei: a pharmacological fMRI study.

Opioid receptors in the central nervous system are important modulators of itch transmission. In this study, we examined the effect of mixed-action opioid butorphanol on histamine itch, cowhage itch, and heat pain in healthy volunteers. Using functional MRI, we investigated significant changes in cerebral perfusion to identify the critical brain centers mediating the antipruritic effect of butorphanol.

Multifractal analysis of information processing in hippocampal neural ensembles during working memory under Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol administration.

Background: Multifractal analysis quantifies the time-scale-invariant properties in data by describing the structure of variability over time. By applying this analysis to hippocampal interspike interval sequences recorded during performance of a working memory task, a measure of long-range temporal correlations and multifractal dynamics can reveal single neuron correlates of information processing.

New Method: Wavelet leaders-based multifractal analysis (WLMA) was applied to hippocampal interspike intervals recorded during a working memory task.

Voxel-based morphometry and arterial spin labeling fMRI reveal neuropathic and neuroplastic features of brain processing of itch in end-stage renal disease.

Pruritus of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) is a multifactorial symptom of complex etiology not yet fully understood. In this study we have investigated the cerebral perfusion patterns at rest in ESRD patients on hemodialysis, compared with those in healthy volunteers. We have also studied the brain responses evoked by experimental itch induction in ESRD, after stimulating the two distinct histamine and cowhage itch pathways, and compared them with the responses evoked in healthy volunteers.

Brain's reward circuits mediate itch relief. a functional MRI study of active scratching.

Previous brain imaging studies investigating the brain processing of scratching used an exogenous intervention mimicking scratching, performed not by the subjects themselves, but delivered by an investigator. In real life, scratching is a conscious, voluntary, controlled motor response to itching, which is directed to the perceived site of distress. In this study we aimed to visualize in real-time by brain imaging the core mechanisms of the itch-scratch cycle when scratching was performed by subjects themselves.

From cue to meaning: brain mechanisms supporting the construction of expectations of pain.

The brain mechanisms by which sensory cues become transformed into expectations of impending events are a critical component of cognitive tuning of sensory processing. However, distinctions among the afferent processing of cue-related activity itself versus those mechanisms supporting the contextual meaning imparted to the cue remain limited. Do sensory cues with equal meaning engage similar patterns of brain activations even if they are delivered in separate modalities? To address this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging of an expectation paradigm in which cues were delivered with visual or innocuous thermal stimuli.

The effects of alcohol on the nonhuman primate brain: a network science approach to neuroimaging.

Background: Animal studies have long been an important tool for basic research as they offer a degree of control often lacking in clinical studies. Of particular value is the use of nonhuman primates (NHPs) for neuroimaging studies. Currently, studies have been published using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand the default-mode network in the NHP brain.

Frontoparietal mechanisms supporting attention to location and intensity of painful stimuli.

Attention can profoundly shape the experience of pain. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that support directed attention to nociceptive information. In the present study, subjects were cued to attend to either the spatial location or the intensity of sequentially presented pairs of painful heat stimuli during a delayed match-to-sample discrimination task.

Neural correlates of mindfulness meditation-related anxiety relief.

Anxiety is the cognitive state related to the inability to control emotional responses to perceived threats. Anxiety is inversely related to brain activity associated with the cognitive regulation of emotions. Mindfulness meditation has been found to regulate anxiety.

A tale of two itches. Common features and notable differences in brain activation evoked by cowhage and histamine induced itch.

Previous PET and fMRI brain imaging studies targeting neural networks processing itch sensation have used histamine as the sole itch inducer. In contrast with histamine, cowhage-induced itch is mediated via proteinase activated receptors PAR2 and is transmitted through a separate spinothalamic pathway, therefore imaging the brain activation evoked by cowhage could provide further insight into central processing of itch. We report for the first time a functional MRI Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) study of neuronal processing of itch induced by cowhage, analyzed in contrast with histamine-induced itch.

Development of iron-containing multiwalled carbon nanotubes for MR-guided laser-induced thermotherapy.

Aims: To test iron-containing multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as bifunctional nanomaterials for imaging and thermal ablation of tumors.

Materials & Methods: MWCNTs entrapping iron were synthesized by chemical vapor deposition. The T2-weighted contrast enhancement properties of MWCNTs containing increasing amounts of iron were determined in vitro.

Brain mechanisms supporting the modulation of pain by mindfulness meditation.

The subjective experience of one's environment is constructed by interactions among sensory, cognitive, and affective processes. For centuries, meditation has been thought to influence such processes by enabling a nonevaluative representation of sensory events. To better understand how meditation influences the sensory experience, we used arterial spin labeling functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the neural mechanisms by which mindfulness meditation influences pain in healthy human participants.