Functional connectivity of posterior cingulate gyrus in heroin dependents treated by methadone maintenance and protracted abstinence measures: an event-related fMRI study

Background.Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) and anorexia nervosa (AN) are both characterized by distorted perception of appearance. Previous studies in BDD suggest abnormalities in visual processing of own and others’ faces, but no study has examined visual processing of faces in AN, nor directly compared the two disorders in this respect.Method.We collected functional magnetic resonance imaging data on 60 individuals of equivalent age and gender in each of three groups – 20 BDD, 20 weight-restored AN, and 20 healthy controls (HC) – while they viewed images of others’ faces that contained only high or low spatial frequency information (HSF or LSF). We tested hypotheses about functional connectivity within specialized sub-networks for HSF and LSF visual processing, using psychophysiological interaction analyses.Results.The BDD group demonstrated increased functional connectivity compared to HC between left anterior occipital face area and right fusiform face area (FFA) for LSF faces, which was associated with symptom severity. Both BDD and AN groups had increased connectivity compared to HC between FFA and precuneous/posterior cingulate gyrus for LSF faces, and decreased connectivity between FFA and insula. In addition, we found that LSF connectivity between FFA and posterior cingulate gyrus was significantly associated with thoughts about own appearance in AN.Conclusions.Results suggest similar abnormal functional connectivity within higher-order systems for face processing in BDD and AN, but distinct abnormal connectivity patterns within occipito-temporal visual networks. Findings may have implications for understanding relationships between these disorders, and the pathophysiology underlying perceptual distortions.

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Awake Transcortical Approach Resection of Dominant Posterior Cingulate Gyrus Glioma: 2-Dimensional Operative Video

Operative Neurosurgery ◽

10.1093/ons/opy347 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. E19-E20 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

N U Farrukh Hameed ◽

Bin Wu ◽

Fangyuan Gong ◽

Jie Zhang ◽

Hong Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cingulate Gyrus ◽

Posterior Cingulate ◽

Posterior Cingulate Gyrus ◽

Transcortical Approach

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I know that I don’t know: Structural and functional connectivity underlying meta-ignorance in pre-schoolers

10.1101/450346 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Elisa Filevich ◽

Caroline Garcia Forlim ◽

Carmen Fehrman ◽

Carina Forster ◽

Markus Paulus ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Default Mode Network ◽

Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽

Cingulate Gyrus ◽

Partial Knowledge ◽

Metacognitive Monitoring ◽

Default Mode ◽

Posterior Cingulate Gyrus ◽

Knowledge Condition ◽

The Brain

Research Highlights[1] Children develop the ability to report that they do not know something at around five years of age.[2] Children who could correctly report their own ignorance in a partial-knowledge task showed thicker cortices within medial orbitofrontal cortex.[3] This region was functionally connected to parts of the default-mode network.[4] The default-mode network might support the development of correct metacognitive monitoring.AbstractMetacognition plays a pivotal role in human development. The ability to realize that we do not know something, or meta-ignorance, emerges after approximately five years of age. We aimed at identifying the brain systems that underlie the developmental emergence of this ability in a preschool sample.Twenty-four children aged between five and six years answered questions under three conditions of a meta-ignorance task twice. In the critical partial knowledge condition, an experimenter first showed two toys to a child, then announced that she would place one of them in a box behind a screen, out of sight from the child. The experimenter then asked the child whether or not she knew which toy was in the box.Children who answered correctly both times to the metacognitive question in the partial knowledge condition (n=9) showed greater cortical thickness in a cluster within left medial orbitofrontal cortex than children who did not (n=15). Further, seed-based functional connectivity analyses of the brain during resting state revealed that this region is functionally connected to the medial orbitofrontal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus and precuneus, and mid- and inferior temporal gyri.This finding suggests that the default mode network, critically through its prefrontal regions, supports introspective processing. It leads to the emergence of metacognitive monitoring allowing children to explicitly report their own ignorance.

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Neural Correlates of Gender Face Perception in Transgender People

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm9061731 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (6) ◽

pp. 1731

Author(s):

Alessandra Daphne Fisher ◽

Jiska Ristori ◽

Giovanni Castellini ◽

Carlotta Cocchetti ◽

Emanuele Cassioli ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Neural Development ◽

Gender Discrimination ◽

Group Analysis ◽

Blood Oxygenation ◽

Angular Gyrus ◽

Cingulate Gyrus ◽

Transgender People ◽

Posterior Cingulate ◽

Posterior Cingulate Gyrus ◽

Oxygenation Level

To date, MRI studies focused on brain sexual dimorphism have not explored the presence of specific neural patterns in gender dysphoria (GD) using gender discrimination tasks. Considering the central role of body image in GD, the present study aims to evaluate brain activation patterns with 3T-scanner functional MRI (fMRI) during gender face discrimination task in a sample of 20 hormone-naïve transgender and 20 cisgender individuals. Additionally, participants were asked to complete psychometric measures. The between-group analysis of average blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) activations of female vs. male face contrast showed a significant positive cluster in the bilateral precuneus in transmen when compared to the ciswomen. In addition, the transwomen group compared to the cismen showed higher activations also in the precuneus, as well as in the posterior cingulate gyrus, the angular gyrus and the lateral occipital cortices. Moreover, the activation of precuneus, angular gyrus, lateral occipital cortices and posterior cingulate gyrus was significantly associated with higher levels of body uneasiness. These results show for the first time the existence of a possible specific GD-neural pattern. However, it remains unclear if the differences in brain phenotype of transgender people may be the result of a sex-atypical neural development or of a lifelong experience of gender non-conformity.

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