Abnormal amygdala functional connectivity during an fMRI expectancy task in pedophilia

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (S1) ◽  
pp. S181-S181
Author(s):  
I. Ristow ◽  
S. Li ◽  
L.R. Demenescu ◽  
H. Walter ◽  
K. Beier ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Central Nucleus ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Emotional Component ◽  
Adults And Children ◽  
Central Gyrus ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Deviant Sexual Behavior

IntroductionPedophilia is a disorder where sexual preferences of adults are directed towards children. This disorder impacts society with 1–2 out of every 10 children being sexually approached by an adult, often resulting in prolonged negative psychological effects. Prior research reported structural and functional amygdala alterations in pedophilia. As the neurophenomenological model of sexual arousal suggests the importance of the amygdala in the emotional component, we focused on amygdala functional connectivity in pedophilia.AimsTo investigate amygdala functional connectivity (FC) modulated by expectancy and salient stimuli in pedophilic patients.MethodsThirteen pedophilic patients and 13 matched healthy controls underwent a salience expectancy task in a 7T ultra high fMRI study. Subjects perceived pictures of naked adults and children. Half of the pictures were preceded by an expectancy cue. Participants were instructed to actively expect the picture depending on the cue. We conducted psychophysiological analysis (PPI) to examine amygdala FC changes in two amygdala sub-regions for child/adult stimuli during the expectancy period and the visual stimuli consummation period using as seed regions the basolateral (BLA) and central nucleus of the amygdala (CeA).ResultsHealthy controls, relative to patients showed significant stronger left CeA to right post-central gyrus FC during expectancy of adult > child picture. For picture condition (adult > child picture) we found significant stronger left CeA to left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex FC in patients compared to healthy controls.ConclusionThese findings add to the recent literature by indicating that amygdala dysfunctional connectivity is involved in development of deviant sexual behavior.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

scholarly journals Altered fear processing in adolescents with a history of severe childhood maltreatment: an fMRI study

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (7) ◽  
pp. 1092-1101 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Hart ◽  
L. Lim ◽  
M. A. Mehta ◽  
A. Simmons ◽  
K. A. H. Mirza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Substance Abuse ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Childhood Maltreatment ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Fmri Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
Psychiatric Conditions

AbstractBackgroundChildren with a history of maltreatment suffer from altered emotion processing but the neural basis of this phenomenon is unknown. This pioneering functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the effects of severe childhood maltreatment on emotion processing while controlling for psychiatric conditions, medication and substance abuse.MethodTwenty medication-naive, substance abuse-free adolescents with a history of childhood abuse, 20 psychiatric control adolescents matched on psychiatric diagnoses but with no maltreatment and 27 healthy controls underwent a fMRI emotion discrimination task comprising fearful, angry, sad happy and neutral dynamic facial expressions.ResultsMaltreated participants responded faster to fearful expressions and demonstrated hyper-activation compared to healthy controls of classical fear-processing regions of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex, which survived at a more lenient threshold relative to psychiatric controls. Functional connectivity analysis, furthermore, demonstrated reduced connectivity between left vmPFC and insula for fear in maltreated participants compared to both healthy and psychiatric controls.ConclusionsThe findings show that people who have experienced childhood maltreatment have enhanced fear perception, both at the behavioural and neurofunctional levels, associated with enhanced fear-related ventromedial fronto-cingulate activation and altered functional connectivity with associated limbic regions. Furthermore, the connectivity adaptations were specific to the maltreatment rather than to the developing psychiatric conditions, whilst the functional changes were only evident at trend level when compared to psychiatric controls, suggesting a continuum. The neurofunctional hypersensitivity of fear-processing networks may be due to childhood over-exposure to fear in people who have been abused.

scholarly journals New Insight into the Neural Mechanisms of Migraine in Adolescents: Relationships with Sleep

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hadas Nahman-Averbuch ◽  
Victor J Schneider ◽  
Gregory R Lee ◽  
James L Peugh ◽  
Andrew D Hershey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Mediation Model ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Quality Sleep ◽  
Sleep Alterations ◽  
Sleep Difficulties ◽  
Insight Into

Adolescents with migraine have different functional connectivity of the amygdala compared to individuals without migraine. Considering that sleep is often disturbed in those adolescents with migrane, this study examined if measures of subjective and objective (actigraphic) sleep difficulties mediate alterations in amygdalar connectivity in adolescents with migraine compared to healthy adolescents. Twenty adolescents with migraine and 20 healthy controls completed surveys about their headaches and overall sleep quality, sleep hygiene and perceived sleep difficulties, wore a wrist-worn actigraphy, and underwent an MRI scan. Adolescents with migraine differed from healthy controls only in perceived sleep difficulties related to sleep initiation and maintenance (p <0.01) andhad greater functional connectivity between the amygdala and the posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, dorsolateral prefrontal, sensorimotor, and the occipital cortexes. While the mediation model showed group differences in subjective and actigraphic sleep difficulties, these did not mediate the differences in amygdalar connectivity found between the groups. Adolescents with migraine have greater connectivity between the amygdala and areas involved in sensory, affective, and cognitive aspects of pain. These alterations may not be due to higher levels of sleep difficulties in adolescents with migraine, suggesting that both amygdala and sleep alterations may play an independent role in migraine pathophysiology

scholarly journals The relationship between resting-state functional connectivity, antidepressant discontinuation and depression relapse

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel M. Berwian ◽  
Julia G. Wenzel ◽  
Leonie Kuehn ◽  
Inga Schnuerer ◽  
Lars Kasper ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽  
Open Label ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

AbstractThe risk of relapsing into depression after stopping antidepressants is high, but no established predictors exist. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) measures may help predict relapse and identify the mechanisms by which relapses occur. rsfMRI data were acquired from healthy controls and from patients with remitted major depressive disorder on antidepressants. Patients were assessed a second time either before or after discontinuation of the antidepressant, and followed up for six months to assess relapse. A seed-based functional connectivity analysis was conducted focusing on the left subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and left posterior cingulate cortex. Seeds in the amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were explored. 44 healthy controls (age: 33.8 (10.5), 73% female) and 84 patients (age: 34.23 (10.8), 80% female) were included in the analysis. 29 patients went on to relapse and 38 remained well. The seed-based analysis showed that discontinuation resulted in an increased functional connectivity between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex in non-relapsers. In an exploratory analysis, this functional connectivity predicted relapse risk with a balanced accuracy of 0.86. Further seed-based analyses, however, failed to reveal differences in functional connectivity between patients and controls, between relapsers and non-relapsers before discontinuation and changes due to discontinuation independent of relapse. In conclusion, changes in the connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior default mode network were associated with and predictive of relapse after open-label antidepressant discontinuation. This finding requires replication in a larger dataset.

Aberrant functional connectivity of dorsolateral prefrontal and cingulate networks in patients with major depression during working memory processing

2008 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 977-987 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Vasic ◽  
H. Walter ◽  
F. Sambataro ◽  
R. C. Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Functional Neuroimaging ◽  
Dynamic Networks ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Connectivity Pattern ◽  
Functional Coupling ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

BackgroundIn patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), functional neuroimaging studies have reported an increased activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during executive performance and working memory (WM) processing, and also an increased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during baseline conditions. However, the functional coupling of these cortical networks during WM processing is less clear.MethodIn this study, we used a verbal WM paradigm, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate statistical techniques to explore patterns of functional coupling of temporally dissociable dorsolateral prefrontal and cingulate networks. By means of independent component analyses (ICAs), two components of interest were identified that showed either a positive or a negative temporal correlation with the delay period of the cognitive activation task in both healthy controls and MDD patients.ResultsIn a prefronto-parietal network, a decreased functional connectivity pattern was identified in depressed patients comprising inferior parietal, superior prefrontal and frontopolar regions. Within this cortical network, MDD patients additionally revealed a pattern of increased functional connectivity in the left DLPFC and the cerebellum compared to healthy controls. In a second, temporally anti-correlated network, healthy controls exhibited higher connectivity in the ACC, the ventrolateral and the superior prefrontal cortex compared to MDD patients.ConclusionsThese results complement and expand previous functional neuroimaging findings by demonstrating a dysconnectivity of dissociable prefrontal and cingulate regions in MDD patients. A disturbance of these dynamic networks is characterized by a simultaneously increased connectivity of the DLPFC during task-induced activation and increased connectivity of the ACC during task-induced deactivation.

scholarly journals The relationship between resting-state functional connectivity, antidepressant discontinuation and depression relapse

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabel M. Berwian ◽  
Julia G. Wenzel ◽  
Leonie Kuehn ◽  
Inga Schnuerer ◽  
Lars Kasper ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽  
Open Label ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal

AbstractThe risk of relapsing into depression after stopping antidepressants is high, but no established predictors exist. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) measures may help predict relapse and identify the mechanisms by which relapses occur. rsfMRI data were acquired from healthy controls and from patients with remitted major depressive disorder on antidepressants. Patients were assessed a second time either before or after discontinuation of the antidepressant, and followed up for six months to assess relapse. A seed-based functional connectivity analysis was conducted focusing on the left subgenual anterior cingulate cortex and left posterior cingulate cortex. Seeds in the amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were explored. 44 healthy controls (age: 33.8 (10.5), 73% female) and 84 patients (age: 34.23 (10.8), 80% female) were included in the analysis. 29 patients went on to relapse and 38 remained well. The seed-based analysis showed that discontinuation resulted in an increased functional connectivity between the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the parietal cortex in non-relapsers. In an exploratory analysis, this functional connectivity predicted relapse risk with a balanced accuracy of 0.86. Further seed-based analyses, however, failed to reveal differences in functional connectivity between patients and controls, between relapsers and non-relapsers before discontinuation and changes due to discontinuation independent of relapse. In conclusion, changes in the connectivity between the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the posterior default mode network were associated with and predictive of relapse after open-label antidepressant discontinuation. This finding requires replication in a larger dataset.

scholarly journals The Higher Parietal Cortical Thickness in Abstinent Methamphetamine Patients Is Correlated With Functional Connectivity and Age of First Usage

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ru Yang ◽  
Lei He ◽  
Zhixue Zhang ◽  
Wenming Zhou ◽  
Jun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Cortical Thickness ◽  
Gray Matter Volume ◽  
Correlation Coefficients ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Central Gyrus ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri

AimThis study aimed to explore the changes of cortical thickness in abstinent methamphetamine (MA) patients compared with healthy controls.Materials and MethodsThree-tesla structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was obtained from 38 abstinent methamphetamine-dependent (AMD) patients and 32 demographically equivalent healthy controls. The cortical thickness was assessed using FreeSurfer software. General linear model was used to get brain regions with significant different cortical thickness between groups (p &lt; 0.05, Monte Carlo simulation corrected). The mean cortical thickness value and functional connectivity with all other brain regions was extracted from those significant regions. Moreover, correlation coefficients were calculated in the AMD group to assess the relations between the mean cortical thickness, functional connectivity and age when they first took MA and the duration of both MA use and abstinence.ResultsThe AMD group showed significant cortical thickness increase in one cluster located in the parietal cortex, including right posterior central gyrus, supramarginal gyrus, and superior parietal lobule. In addition, cortical thickness values of those regions were all significant and negatively correlated with the age when patients first used MA. The cortical thickness of right posterior gyrus were positively correlated with its functional connectivities with left middle frontal gyrus and both left and right medial orbitofrontal gyrus.ConclusionThe higher cortical thickness in the parietal cortex of the AMD group is in agreement with findings in related studies of increased glucose metabolism and gray matter volume. Importantly, the negative correlation between parietal cortical thickness and age of first MA suggested that adolescent brains are more vulnerable to MA’s neurotoxic effect.

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