Publications by authors named "Yu-Feng Zang"

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder and its underlying neuroanatomical mechanisms still remain unclear. The scaled subprofile model of principal component analysis (SSM-PCA) is a data-driven multivariate technique for capturing stable disease-related spatial covariance pattern. Here, SSM-PCA is innovatively applied to obtain robust ASD-related gray matter volume pattern associated with clinical symptoms.

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Introduction: The centromedian nucleus (CM) of the thalamus is essential for arousal, attention, sensory processing, and motor control. Neuromodulation targeting CM dysfunction has shown efficacy in various neurological disorders. However, its individualized precise transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) remains unreported.

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Objective: In order to examine whether individualized peak functional connectivity could potentially serve as a target for repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) therapy, we investigated the location of peak functional connectivity (FC) between the cortical motor area and the key brain region, the globus pallidus internus (GPi), in Tourette syndrome, and explored the relationship between the severity of the disease and these aberrant functional connections.

Methods: The study involved a cohort of 103 children diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and 66 age-matched typically developing children. The GPi was served as the seed, and the study compared individualized peak FC strength in the supplementary motor area (SMA) and premotor area between the two groups.

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Background: A range of imaging modalities have reported Alzheimer's disease-related abnormalities in individuals experiencing subjective cognitive decline (SCD). However, there has been no consistent local abnormality identified across multiple neuroimaging modalities for SCD.

Objective: We aimed to investigate the convergent local alterations in amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition, glucose metabolism, and resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI) metrics in SCD.

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Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a behaviorally defined complex neurodevelopmental syndrome characterized by persistent social communication and interaction deficit. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a promising and emerging tool for the intervention of ASD by reducing both core and associate symptoms. Several reviews have been published regarding TMS-based ASD treatment, however, a systematic review on study characteristics, specific stimulating parameters, localization techniques, stimulated targets, behavioral outcomes, and neuroimage biomarker changes is lagged behind since 2018.

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US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared a Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) system with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging-guided (fMRI) individualized treatment protocol for major depressive disorder, which employs resting state-fMRI (RS-fMRI) functional connectivity (FC) to pinpoint the target individually to increase the accuracy and effeteness of the stimulation. Furthermore, task activation-guided TMS, as well as the use of RS-fMRI local metrics for targeted the specific abnormal brain regions, are considered a precise scheme for TMS targeting. Since 1.

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Article Synopsis
  • Children with ADHD show significant difficulties in basic academic skills, particularly in Chinese reading, such as word recognition and character recognition compared to healthy controls.
  • A study involving 302 ADHD children and 105 healthy controls revealed that ADHD affected reading performance, potentially linked to impaired sustained attention and lower IQ.
  • Brain imaging indicated that ADHD children rely more on the default mode network (DMN) to support their reading skills, whereas healthy controls use the dorsal attention network (DAN), suggesting different cognitive strategies in reading.
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Recent advances in open neuroimaging data are enhancing our comprehension of neuropsychiatric disorders. By pooling images from various cohorts, statistical power has increased, enabling the detection of subtle abnormalities and robust associations, and fostering new research methods. Global collaborations in imaging have furthered our knowledge of the neurobiological foundations of brain disorders and aided in imaging-based prediction for more targeted treatment.

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Parietal alpha activity shows a specific pattern of phasic changes during working memory. It decreases during the encoding and recall phases but increases during the maintenance phase. This study tested whether online rTMS delivered to the parietal cortex during the maintenance phase of a working memory task would increase alpha activity and hence improve working memory.

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Background: Inattention is a key characteristic of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Specific brain abnormalities associated with this symptom form a discernible pattern related with ADHD in children (i.e.

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Background: The social motivation hypothesis proposes that the social deficits of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are related to reward system dysfunction. However, functional connectivity (FC) patterns of the reward network in ASD have not been systematically explored yet.

Methods: The reward network was defined as eight regions of interest (ROIs) per hemisphere, including the nucleus accumbens (NAc), caudate, putamen, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), amygdala, and insula.

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Introduction: The coil handle orientation plays a pivotal role in the therapeutic efficacy of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). However, there is currently no consensus on the optimal individualized coil handle orientation, especially for non-motor areas.

Case Presentation: The present case reported a short-term effect of functional connectivity (FC)-guided rTMS with coil handle posterior-anterior 45° (PA45°) and posterior-anterior 135° (PA135°) on a patient with insomnia.

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Functional connectivity (FC) derived from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging has been widely applied to guide precise repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). The left, right, and bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC) have been used as rTMS treatment target regions for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), albeit with moderate efficacy. Thus, we aimed to develop an individualized localization method for rTMS treatment of ASD.

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Study Objectives: Insomnia and depression are common mental health problems reported by mental health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Network analysis is a fine-grained approach used to examine associations between psychiatric syndromes at a symptom level. This study was designed to elucidate central symptoms and bridge symptoms of a depression-insomnia network among psychiatric practitioners in China.

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Article Synopsis
  • Amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) using wavelet transform (Wavelet-ALFF) demonstrates improved sensitivity and reproducibility compared to traditional fast Fourier transform (FFT-ALFF) in resting-state fMRI studies.
  • The study evaluated the reliability and validity of Wavelet-ALFF across multiple centers and conditions (with 248 participants), finding that it outperformed FFT-ALFF, particularly in higher frequency bands.
  • Wavelet-ALFF, specifically the db2-ALFF variant, exhibited the highest reliability and validity, indicating its potential as a robust tool for analyzing spontaneous brain activities in future research.
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Most stroke repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) studies have used hand motor hotspots as rTMS stimulation targets; in addition, recent studies demonstrated that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task activation could be used to determine suitable targets due to its ability to reveal individualized precise and stronger functional connectivity with motor-related brain regions. However, rTMS is unlikely to elicit motor evoked potentials in the affected hemisphere, nor would activity be detected when stroke patients with severe hemiplegia perform an fMRI motor task using the affected limbs. The current study proposed that the peak voxel in the resting-state fMRI (RS-fMRI) motor network determined by independent component analysis (ICA) could be a potential stimulation target.

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The low-frequency (<0.1 Hz) fluctuation in sustained attention attracts enormous interest in cognitive neuroscience and clinical research since it always leads to cognitive and behavioral lapses. What is the source of the spontaneous fluctuation in sustained attention in neural activity, and how does the neural fluctuation relate to behavioral fluctuation? Here, we address these questions by collecting and analyzing two independent fMRI and behavior datasets.

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Introduction: In familial cortical myoclonic tremor with epilepsy, photic stimulation can trigger visual symptoms and induce a photoparoxysmal response, or photosensitivity, on electroencephalography. However, the mechanism is poorly understood. In this study, we aimed to explore the neuroimaging changes related to visual symptoms and photosensitivity in genetically confirmed familial cortical myoclonic tremor with epilepsy type 1.

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Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is increasingly being diagnosed in both children and adults, but the neural mechanisms that underlie its distinct symptoms and whether children and adults share the same mechanism remain poorly understood. Here, we used a nested-spectral partition approach to study resting-state brain networks of ADHD patients (n = 97) and healthy controls (HCs, n = 97) across the lifespan (7-50 years). Compared to the linear lifespan associations of brain segregation and integration with age in HCs, ADHD patients have a quadratic association in the whole-brain and in most functional systems, whereas the limbic system dominantly affected by ADHD has a linear association.

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Article Synopsis
  • Despite advancements in neuroimaging research on major depressive disorder (MDD), findings remain inconsistent due to small sample sizes and varying analysis methods, prompting the launch of the Depression Imaging REsearch ConsorTium (DIRECT) and the REST-meta-MDD project, which pooled data from 2,428 functional brain images.
  • The initial analyses revealed significant changes in brain connectivity and dynamics, laying the groundwork for future research and highlighting the need for more comprehensive studies across diverse populations.
  • DIRECT's second phase aims to broaden the investigation of brain alterations in MDD by including various ethnic groups and other mental health disorders, while also focusing on long-term studies of treatment effects and improving neuroimaging methodologies for clinical applications.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the nucleus accumbens (NAc), which is key in reward processing and its role in major depressive disorder (MDD).
  • Through meta- and mega-analysis of resting-state fMRI data, it was found that patients with recurrent MDD exhibited decreased functional connectivity within the NAc-based reward circuits.
  • The research highlights that disrupted connectivity between the reward network and the default mode network (DMN) may aid in differentiating MDD patients from healthy individuals, suggesting potential biomarkers for diagnosis.
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Resting-state magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) studies indicated that the repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) exerts antidepression effect through the functional connectivity (FC) of the DLPFC with the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), pregneual ACC (pgACC), or nucleus accumbens (NAc). It is proposed that the FC-guided individualized precise stimulation on the DLPFC would be more effective. The current study systematically investigated the reliability of the RS-fMRI FC location as well as the FC strength with multiple potential factors.

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