A multi‐country, multi‐cohort examination of cortical volume, thickness, and surface area in the motoric cognitive risk (MCR) syndrome

Background: The motoric cognitive risk (MCR) syndrome is a pre-clinical stage of dementia characterized by slow gait and cognitive complaint. Yet, the brain substrates of MCR are not well established. Objective: To examine cortical thickness, volume, and surface area associated with MCR in the MCR-Neuroimaging Consortium, which harmonizes image processing/analysis of multiple cohorts. Methods: Two-hundred MRIs (M age 72.62 years; 47.74%female; 33.17%MCR) from four different cohorts (50 each) were first processed with FreeSurfer 6.0, and then analyzed using multivariate and univariate general linear models with 1,000 bootstrapped samples (n-1; with resampling). All models adjusted for age, sex, education, white matter lesions, total intracranial volume, and study site. Results: Overall, cortical thickness was lower in individuals with MCR than in those without MCR. There was a trend in the same direction for cortical volume (p = 0.051). Regional cortical thickness was also lower among individuals with MCR than individuals without MCR in prefrontal, insular, temporal, and parietal regions. Conclusion: Cortical atrophy in MCR is pervasive, and include regions previously associated with human locomotion, but also social, cognitive, affective, and motor functions. Cortical atrophy in MCR is easier to detect in cortical thickness than volume and surface area because thickness is more affected by healthy and pathological aging.

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The relationship between brain structure and general psychopathology in preadolescents

10.31234/osf.io/r4pxy ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Louise Mewton ◽

Briana Lees ◽

Lindsay Squeglia ◽

Miriam K. Forbes ◽

Matthew Sunderland ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mental Disorders ◽

Surface Area ◽

Brain Structure ◽

Parental Education ◽

Mental Illnesses ◽

General Psychopathology ◽

Control Approach ◽

Cortical Volume ◽

Subcortical Regions ◽

The Relationship

Categorical mental disorders are being recognized as suboptimal targets in clinical neuroscience due to poor reliability as well as high rates of heterogeneity within, and comorbidity between, mental disorders. As an alternative to the case-control approach, recent studies have focused on the relationship between neurobiology and latent dimensions of psychopathology. The current study aimed to investigate the relationship between brain structure and psychopathology in the critical preadolescent period when psychopathology is emerging. This study included baseline data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study® (n = 11,721; age range = 9-10 years; male = 52.2%). General psychopathology, externalizing, internalizing, and thought disorder dimensions were based on a higher-order model of psychopathology and estimated using Bayesian plausible values. Outcome variables included global and regional cortical volume, thickness, and surface area. Higher levels of psychopathology across all dimensions were associated with lower volume and surface area globally, as well as widespread and pervasive alterations across the majority of cortical and subcortical regions studied, after adjusting for sex, race/ethnicity, and parental education. The relationships between general psychopathology and brain structure were attenuated when adjusting for cognitive functioning. There was evidence of a relationship between externalizing psychopathology and frontal regions of the cortex that was independent of general psychopathology. The current study identified lower cortical volume and surface area as transdiagnostic biomarkers for general psychopathology in preadolescence. The widespread and pervasive relationships between general psychopathology and brain structure may reflect cognitive dysfunction that is a feature across a range of mental illnesses.

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ZNF804A rs1344706 is associated with cortical thickness, surface area, and cortical volume of the unmedicated first episode schizophrenia and healthy controls

American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B Neuropsychiatric Genetics ◽

10.1002/ajmg.b.32308 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 168 (4) ◽

pp. 265-273 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Qinling Wei ◽

Meng Li ◽

Zhuang Kang ◽

Leijun Li ◽

Feici Diao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Surface Area ◽

Cortical Thickness ◽

First Episode ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Cortical Volume ◽

First Episode Schizophrenia

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Cortical Volume Differences in Subjects at Risk for Psychosis Are Driven by Surface Area

Schizophrenia Bulletin ◽

10.1093/schbul/sbaa066 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 46 (6) ◽

pp. 1511-1519

Author(s):

Roman Buechler ◽

Diana Wotruba ◽

Lars Michels ◽

Anastasia Theodoridou ◽

Sibylle Metzler ◽

...

Keyword(s):

At Risk ◽

Surface Area ◽

Gray Matter Volume ◽

Occipital Cortex ◽

Psychotic Symptoms ◽

Basic Symptoms ◽

Cortical Volume ◽

Cortical Thinning ◽

Morphometric Features ◽

Ultra High Risk

Abstract In subjects at risk for psychosis, the studies on gray matter volume (GMV) predominantly reported volume loss compared with healthy controls (CON). However, other important morphological measurements such as cortical surface area (CSA) and cortical thickness (CT) were not systematically compared. So far, samples mostly comprised subjects at genetic risk or at clinical risk fulfilling an ultra-high risk (UHR) criterion. No studies comparing UHR subjects with at-risk subjects showing only basic symptoms (BS) investigated the differences in CSA or CT. Therefore, we aimed to unravel the contribution of the 2 morphometrical measures constituting the cortical volume (CV) and to test whether these groups inhere different morphometric features. We conducted a surface-based morphometric analysis in 34 CON, 46 BS, and 39 UHR to examine between-group differences in CV, CSA, and CT vertex-wise across the whole cortex. Compared with BS and CON, UHR individuals presented increased CV in frontal and parietal regions, which was driven by larger CSA. These groups did not differ in CT. Yet, at-risk subjects who later developed schizophrenia showed thinning in the occipital cortex. Furthermore, BS presented increased CSA compared with CON. Our results suggest that volumetric differences in UHR subjects are driven by CSA while CV loss in converters seems to be based on cortical thinning. We attribute the larger CSA in UHR to aberrant pruning representing a vulnerability to develop psychotic symptoms reflected in different levels of vulnerability for BS and UHR, and cortical thinning to a presumably stress-related cortical decomposition.

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