Background: Regional gray matter volume (GMV) differences between individuals with mental disorders and comparison participants may be confounded by co-occurring disorders. To disentangle disorder-specific GMV correlates, we conducted a large-scale multidisorder meta-analysis using a novel approach that explicitly models co-occurring disorders.
Methods: We systematically reviewed voxel-based morphometry studies indexed in PubMed and Scopus up to January 2023 that compared adults with major mental disorders (anorexia nervosa, schizophrenia spectrum, anxiety, bipolar, major depressive, obsessive-compulsive, and posttraumatic stress disorders plus attention-deficit/hyperactivity, autism spectrum, and borderline personality disorders) with comparison participants.
Quantifying learning deficits provides valuable information in identifying and diagnosing mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Previous research has found that a learning ratio (LR) metric, derived from the list learning test from the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB), was able to distinguish between those with normal cognition versus memory impairment. The current study furthers the NAB LR research by validating a NAB story LR, as well as an aggregate LR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFList-learning tasks provide a wealth of information about an individual's cognitive abilities: attention, encoding, storage, retrieval, recognition. A more recently developed metric, the Learning Ratio (LR), supplements information about cognitive ability and can assist the clinician in determining whether an individual has cognitive impairment. The LR is calculated by taking the difference between the individuals' raw score on the first learning trial and their raw score on the last learning trial, which is then divided by the number of words left to be learned after the first learning trial.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In mental health, comorbidities are the norm rather than the exception. However, current meta-analytic methods for summarizing the neural correlates of mental disorders do not consider comorbidities, reducing them to a source of noise and bias rather than benefitting from their valuable information.
Objectives: We describe and validate a novel neuroimaging meta-analytic approach that focuses on comorbidities.
A variety of neuropsychological changes secondary to heart failure have been documented in the literature. However, what remains unclear are which neuropsychological abilities are the most impacted by heart failure and what tests have the sensitivity to measure that impact. Eight databases were searched for articles that examined the neuropsychological functioning of patients with heart failure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Research has demonstrated that patients with opioid use disorders (OUD; including both opioid abuse and/or dependence) have poorer neuropsychological functioning compared to healthy controls; however, the pattern and robustness of the findings remain unknown.
Objectives: This study meta-analyzed the results from previous research examining the neuropsychological deficits associated with opioids across 14 neurocognitive domains.
Method: Articles comparing patients with OUD to healthy controls were selected based on detailed inclusion/exclusion criteria and variables of interest were coded.
Background: Previous meta-analytical research examining cocaine and methamphetamine separately suggests potentially different neuropsychological profiles associated with each drug. In addition, neuroimaging studies point to distinct structural changes that might underlie differences in neuropsychological functioning.
Objectives: This meta-analysis compared the effect sizes identified in cocaine versus methamphetamine studies across 15 neuropsychological domains.
Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse
September 2017
Background: Prior research utilizing whole-brain neuroimaging techniques has identified structural differences in gray matter in opioid-dependent individuals. However, the results have been inconsistent.
Objectives: The current study meta-analytically examines the neuroimaging findings of studies published before 2016 comparing opioid-dependent individuals to drug-naïve controls.
Background: Promising models for cognitive rehabilitation in alcohol treatment rest on a more nuanced understanding of the associated impairments in the multifaceted domains of executive functioning (EF) and impulsivity.
Objectives: This meta-analysis examined the effects of alcohol on the individual subcomponents of EF and impulsivity in recently detoxified participants, including 1) Inhibition & Self-Regulation, 2) Flexibility & Set Shifting, 3) Planning & Problem Solving, 4) Reasoning & Abstraction, and 5) Verbal Fluency. Impulsivity was further examined through an analysis of motor, cognitive, and decisional subcategories.
Previous research suggests that core borderline personality disorder (BPD) symptoms vary in severity with advancing age. While structural neuroimaging studies show smaller limbic and prefrontal gray matter volumes (GMV) in primarily adult and adolescent BPD patients, respectively, findings are inconsistent. Using the effect-size signed differential mapping (ES-SDM) meta-analytic method, we investigated the relationship between advancing age and GMV abnormalities in BPD patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Voxel-based morphometry has been used to explore gray matter alterations in cocaine and methamphetamine dependence. However, the results of this research are inconsistent.
Objectives: The current study meta-analytically examined neuroimaging findings of all studies published before 2014 using the Anisotropic Effect-Size Signed Differential Mapping (ES-SDM).
Background: Diffusion tensor imaging has been used to explore white matter changes in heroin-dependent patients; however, results have been inconsistent.
Objectives: The current study meta-analytically examines the neuroimaging findings of all studies published before 2014 using the novel technique of Effect Size Signed Differential Mapping (ES-SDM).
Methods: Two independent investigators searched three databases for whole-brain voxel-based fractional anisotropy morphometric studies involving heroin use without comorbid polysubstance abuse.
Purpose: While hemorrhoidal disease is common, its etiology remains unclear. It has been postulated that disturbances in collagen lead to reduced connective tissue stability, and in turn to the development of hemorrhoidal disease. We aimed to compare the quality and quantity of collagen in patients with hemorrhoidal disease versus normal controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn coastal aquifers, significant vertical hydraulic gradients are formed where fresh water and underlying salt water discharge together upward to the seafloor. Monitoring boreholes may act as "short circuits" along these vertical gradients, connecting between the higher and the lower hydraulic head zones. When a sea tide is introduced, the fluctuations of both the water table and the depth of the mixing zone are also biased due to this effect.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSteep hydraulic gradients are found in association with steep monoclinal flexures. However, the physics of the reduction of the hydraulic conductivity, which is responsible for the steep gradients, has seldom been studied. We present results of hydrological and mechanical modeling aiming to study the effect of such steep hydraulic gradients demonstrated in the Judea Group Aquifer system, Israel.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOffer your patient this educational tool when you teach him how to care for his injury.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSci Total Environ
June 2003
Due to a variety of past and present land-usages on the aquifer ground surface, appropriate groundwater management should consider anthropogenic activities on the ground surface and the potential of unsaturated zone media to convey water and pollutants to the aquifer. The objective of this paper is to present an approach which generates guidelines and recommendations which can lead to sustainable development. This method assesses the lithological characteristics of the aquifer's vadose zone, indicating potential rechargeability, while weighting factors leading to potential groundwater pollution resulting from some land-use.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransplantable tumours were induced in the thyroids of Fischer 344 rats fed thiouracil (TU) in a moderately low iodine diet for 8-13 months. Pieces of hyperplastic thyroid were implanted subcutaneously into rats fed a TU containing diet. Almost all implants gave rise to very small vascularized transplants but there were three significantly larger, pieces of which were transplanted again and gave rise to the tumour lines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTransplantable tumors of the thyroid gland have been produced by feeding of thiouracil (TU) to inbred Fischer 344 rats followed by the transplantation, initially, of pieces of hyperplastic thyroid gland, and in later generations, of pieces of transplanted tissue into similar rats or into rats fed a high iodine diet. In early generations, transplants grew only in the rats fed the TU diet, and this tissue was called dependent, whereas if the tissue grew in rats fed the high iodine diet in the absence of TU, it was called independent. Dependent tumors were, initially, either papillary or of follicles distended with colloid.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAm J Physiol
October 1991
Microdensitometric measurements were made on autoradiographs of radioiodide localized in mouse thyroids subjected to various degrees of stimulation, in which the formation of organic radioiodide was acutely blocked. Estimates were made of the relative concentrations of radioiodide in lumens and cells of follicles and in the nearby blood vessels. Simple models were introduced to interpret the data.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn male Fischer rats, a class of follicles with flat epithelium is present as a minor component of thyroid glands in which most of the follicles have cuboidal epithelium. These follicles occur in thyroids that have been made hyperplastic by feeding the rats thiouracil for 21 days and then allowing involution for 21 days or more. They also occur in older control rats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ultrastructure of the thyroid epithelial cell was examined at various time intervals after induction of involution of the hyperplastic thyroid gland. Thyroids were made hyperplastic by the feeding of thiouracil in a Remington low-iodine diet to male Fischer rats for 3 weeks. Involution was induced by replacing the thiouracil-containing diet with Purina Laboratory Chow, a high-iodine diet.
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