Investigation of brain volume changes associated with aging: Results from the fourth research on osteoarthritis/osteoporosis against disability survey.

Aim: This study aims to investigate the impact of aging on brain volume among community residents in Japan, focusing on trends over time and specific brain structures.

Methods: We analyzed data from the fourth survey (2015-2016) of the Research on Osteoarthritis/Osteoporosis Against Disability project, encompassing 2146 community residents from Japan's mountainous and coastal regions. A total of 1755 participants (81.

Stereotaxic Coordinates of Human Hypothalamic Nuclei Used for Region of Interest Analyses in Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

The hypothalamus maintains homeostasis by controlling various organs and the central nervous system, but analyzing the human hypothalamic nuclei is challenging. Our previous studies applied areal parcellation to high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to delineate hypothalamic nuclei boundaries. This article presents stereotaxic coordinates of these nuclei for fMRI analyses, offering guidance on defining regions of interest and appropriate spatial smoothing kernel sizes.

More widespread functionality of posterior language area in patients with brain tumors.

Damage to the posterior language area (PLA), or Wernicke's area causes cortical reorganization in the corresponding regions of the contralateral hemisphere. However, the details of reorganization within the ipsilateral hemisphere are not fully understood. In this context, direct electrical stimulation during awake surgery can provide valuable opportunities to investigate neuromodulation of the human brain in vivo, which is difficult through the non-invasive approaches.

Noninvasive intervention by transcranial ultrasound stimulation: Modulation of neural circuits and its clinical perspectives.

Low-intensity focused transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) is an emerging noninvasive technique capable of stimulating both the cerebral cortex and deep brain structures with high spatial precision. This method is recognized for its potential to comprehensively perturb various brain regions, enabling the modulation of neural circuits, in a manner not achievable through conventional magnetic or electrical brain stimulation techniques. The underlying mechanisms of neuromodulation are based on a phenomenon where mechanical waves of ultrasound kinetically interact with neurons, specifically affecting neuronal membranes and mechanosensitive channels.

A causal role of anterior prefrontal-putamen circuit for response inhibition revealed by transcranial ultrasound stimulation in humans.

Stopping an inappropriate response requires the involvement of the prefrontal-subthalamic hyperdirect pathway. However, how the prefrontal-striatal indirect pathway contributes to stopping is poorly understood. In this study, transcranial ultrasound stimulation is used to perform interventions in a task-related region in the striatum.

Role of right temporoparietal junction for counterfactual evaluation of partner's decision in ultimatum game.

Humans assess the distributions of resources based on their aversion to unfairness. If a partner distributes in an unfair manner even though the partner had a less unfair distribution option, a recipient will believe that the partner should have chosen the counterfactual option. In this study, we investigated the neural basis for fairness evaluation of actual and counterfactual options in the ultimatum game.

Advantages of Using Both Voxel- and Surface-based Morphometry in Cortical Morphology Analysis: A Review of Various Applications.

Surface-based morphometry (SBM) is extremely useful for estimating the indices of cortical morphology, such as volume, thickness, area, and gyrification, whereas voxel-based morphometry (VBM) is a typical method of gray matter (GM) volumetry that includes cortex measurement. In cases where SBM is used to estimate cortical morphology, it remains controversial as to whether VBM should be used in addition to estimate GM volume. Therefore, this review has two main goals.

Parallel cognitive processing streams in human prefrontal cortex: Parsing areal-level brain network for response inhibition.

Multiple cognitive processes are recruited to achieve adaptive behavior. However, it is poorly understood how such cognitive processes are implemented in temporal cascades of human cerebral cortical areas as processing streams to achieve behavior. In the present study, we identify cortical processing streams for response inhibition and examine relationships among the processing streams.

Connectivity-based localization of human hypothalamic nuclei in functional images of standard voxel size.

Despite their critical roles in autonomic functions, individual hypothalamic nuclei have not been extensively investigated in humans using functional magnetic resonance imaging, partly due to the difficulty in resolving individual nuclei contained in the small structure of the hypothalamus. Areal parcellation analyses enable discrimination of individual hypothalamic nuclei but require a higher spatial resolution, which necessitates long scanning time or large amounts of data to compensate for the low signal-to-noise ratio in 3T or 1.5T scanners.

Functional Organization for Response Inhibition in the Right Inferior Frontal Cortex of Individual Human Brains.

The right inferior frontal cortex (IFC) is critical to response inhibition. The right IFC referred in the human studies of response inhibition is located in the posterior part of the inferior frontal gyrus and the surrounding regions and consists of multiple areas that implement distinct functions. Recent studies using resting-state functional connectivity have parcellated the cerebral cortex and revealed across-subject variability of parcel-based cerebrocortical networks.

Dissociable Networks of the Lateral/Medial Mammillary Body in the Human Brain.

The mammillary body (MB) has been thought to implement mnemonic functions. Although recent animal studies have revealed dissociable roles of the lateral and medial parts of the MB, the dissociable roles of the lateral/medial MB in the human brain is still unclear. Functional connectivity using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) provides a unique opportunity to noninvasively inspect the intricate functional organization of the human MB with a high degree of spatial resolution.

Network Centrality Reveals Dissociable Brain Activity during Response Inhibition in Human Right Ventral Part of Inferior Frontal Cortex.

The human right inferior frontal cortex (IFC) plays a critical role in response inhibition. It has also been demonstrated that the IFC is heterogeneous and that the ventral part of the IFC (vIFC) is more critical to inhibition of prepotent response tendency. Recent areal parcellation analyses based on resting-state functional connectivity have revealed that the right vIFC consists of multiple functional areas.

MRI-based visualization of rTMS-induced cortical plasticity in the primary motor cortex.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) induces changes in cortical excitability for minutes to hours after the end of intervention. However, it has not been precisely determined to what extent cortical plasticity prevails spatially in the cortex. Recent studies have shown that rTMS induces changes in "interhemispheric" functional connectivity, the resting-state functional connectivity between the stimulated region and the symmetrically corresponding region in the contralateral hemisphere.

Skeletal muscle function and need for long-term care of urban elderly people in Japan (the Bunkyo Health Study): a prospective cohort study.

Purpose: The proportion of elderly individuals (age ≥65 years) in Japan reached 27.7% in 2017, the highest in the world. A serious social problem in a super-aged society is the rise in the number of elderly people who need long-term care (LTC), which is mainly due to cerebrovascular disease, dementia, age-related frailty, falls and fractures, and joint disease.

More subjects are required for ventrolateral than dorsolateral prefrontal TMS because of intolerability and potential drop-out.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) of the human lateral prefrontal cortex, particularly the ventral region, often causes considerable discomfort to subjects. To date, in contrast to abundant literature on stimulations to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex has been less frequently stimulated, partly because some subjects are intolerable of stimulation to the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. To predict the additional number of subjects required for the stimulation of the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, 20 young healthy subjects reported two evaluation scores: the discomfort caused by TMS and the resulting intolerability to complete the TMS experiments.

An Essential Role of the Intraparietal Sulcus in Response Inhibition Predicted by Parcellation-Based Network.

The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) features close anatomical and functional relationships with the prefrontal cortex. However, the necessity of the PPC in executive functions has been questioned. The present study used the stop-signal task to examine response inhibition, an executive function that inhibits prepotent response tendency.

Striatal subdivisions that coherently interact with multiple cerebrocortical networks.

The striatum constitutes the cortical-basal ganglia loop and receives input from the cerebral cortex. Previous MRI studies have parcellated the human striatum using clustering analyses of structural/functional connectivity with the cerebral cortex. However, it is currently unclear how the striatal regions functionally interact with the cerebral cortex to organize cortical functions in the temporal domain.

Within-Subject Correlation Analysis to Detect Functional Areas Associated With Response Inhibition.

Functional areas in fMRI studies are often detected by brain-behavior correlation, calculating across-subject correlation between the behavioral index and the brain activity related to a function of interest. Within-subject correlation analysis is also employed in a single subject level, which utilizes cognitive fluctuations in a shorter time period by correlating the behavioral index with the brain activity across trials. In the present study, the within-subject analysis was applied to the stop-signal task, a standard task to probe response inhibition, where efficiency of response inhibition can be evaluated by the stop-signal reaction time (SSRT).

Functional subdivisions of the hypothalamus using areal parcellation and their signal changes related to glucose metabolism.

The hypothalamus consists of numerous nuclei, and is regarded as the highest center for various autonomic functions. Although each hypothalamic nucleus implements a distinct function, it remains difficult to investigate the human hypothalamus at the nucleus level. In the present high-resolution functional MRI study, we utilized areal parcellation to discriminate individual nuclei in the human hypothalamus based on areal profiles of resting-state functional connectivity.