scholarly journals Mu-opioid receptor system modulates responses to vocal bonding and distress signals in humans

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihua Sun ◽  
Lasse Lukkarinen ◽  
Henry Karlsson ◽  
Jussi Hirvonen ◽  
Jari Tiihonen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Auditory Cortex ◽  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Receptor System ◽  
Mu Opioid ◽  
Secondary Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Brain Responses

Laughter is a contagious prosocial signal that conveys bonding motivation; adult crying conversely communicates desire for social proximity by signalling distress. Endogenous mu-opioid receptors (MORs) modulate sociability in humans and non-human primates. In this combined PET-fMRI study (n=17) we tested whether central MOR tone is associated with regional brain responses to social signals of laughter and crying sounds. MOR availability was measured with positron emission tomography using high-affinity agonist radioligand [11C]carfentanil. Haemodynamic responses to social laughter and crying sounds were measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Social laughter evoked activation in the auditory cortex, insula, cingulate cortex, amygdala, primary and secondary somatosensory cortex, primary and secondary motor cortex; crying sounds led to more restricted activation in auditory cortex and nearby areas. MOR availability was negatively correlated with the haemodynamic responses to social laughter in primary and secondary somatosensory cortex, primary and secondary motor cortex, posterior insula, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus, cuneus, temporal gyri, and lingual gyrus. For crying-evoked activations, MOR availability was negatively correlated with medial and lateral prefrontal haemodynamic responses. Altogether our findings highlight the role of MOR system in modulating acute brain responses to both positive and negative social signals.

scholarly journals Interplay of spinal and vagal pathways on esophageal acid-related anterior cingulate cortex functional networks in rats

2019 ◽  
Vol 316 (5) ◽  
pp. G615-G622
Author(s):  
Patrick Sanvanson ◽  
Zhixin Li ◽  
Ling Mei ◽  
Venelin Kounev ◽  
Mark Kern ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Connectivity ◽  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Acid Infusion ◽  
Spinal Nerves ◽  
Secondary Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Bilateral Vagotomy

Esophageal acid sensory signals are transmitted by both vagal and spinal pathways to the cerebral cortex. The influence and interplay of these pathways on esophageal acid-related functional connectivity has been elusive. Our aim was to evaluate the esophageal acid exposure-related effect on the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) functional connectivity networks using functional MRI-guided functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI) analysis. We studied six Sprague-Dawley rats for fcMRI experiments under dexmedetomidine hydrochloride anesthesia. Each rat was scanned for 6 min before and after esophageal hydrochloric acid infusion (0.1 N, 0.2 ml/min). The protocol was repeated before and after bilateral cervical vagotomy on the same rat. Seed-based fcMRI analysis was used to examine ACC networks and acid-induced network alterations. Three-factor repeated-measures ANOVA analysis among all four subgroups revealed that the interaction of acid infusion and bilateral vagotomy was mainly detected in the hypothalamus, insula, left secondary somatosensory cortex, left parietal cortex, and right thalamus in the left ACC network. In the right ACC network, this interaction effect was detected in the caudate putamen, insula, motor, primary somatosensory cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, and thalamic regions. These regions in the ACC networks showed decreased intranetwork connectivity due to acid infusion. However, after bilateral vagotomy, intranetwork connectivity strength inversed and became stronger following postvagotomy acid infusion. Signals transmitted through both the vagal nerve and spinal nerves play a role in esophageal acid-related functional connectivity of the ACC. The vagal signals appear to dampen the acid sensation-related functional connectivity of the ACC networks. NEW & NOTEWORTHY These studies show that esophageal acid-induced brain functional connectivity changes are vagally mediated and suggest that signals transmitted through both the vagal nerve and spinal nerves play a role in esophageal acid-related functional connectivity of the anterior cingulate cortex. This paper focuses on the development of a novel rat functional MRI model fostering improved understanding of acid-related esophageal disorders.

132 The Underlying Effect of Burst Stimulation on Chronic Pain Using Multimodal Neuroimaging - EEG, fMRI and PET

Neurosurgery ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 64 (CN_suppl_1) ◽  
pp. 230-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaheen Ahmed ◽  
Sven Vanneste
Keyword(s):  
Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Leg Pain ◽  
Burst Stimulation ◽  
Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Tonic Stimulation

Abstract INTRODUCTION Minimally invasive neuromodulation such as spinal cord stimulation (SCS) and occipital nerve stimulation (ONS) have shown to be successful for treatment of different types of pain such as chronic back or leg pain, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), and fibromyalgia. Recently, novel stimulation paradigm called burst stimulation was developed that suppresses pain to better extent than classical tonic stimulation. From clinical point of view, burst stimulation is very promising; however, little is known about its underlying mechanism. Hence, in this work we investigate mechanism of action for burst stimulation in different patient groups and controls using different neuroimaging multimodalities such as EEG, fMRI and PET. METHODS Control subjects and patients with chronic back or leg pain, CRPS, or fibromyalgia enrolled for study. Both controls and patients received SCS or ONS and sham, tonic, and burst stimulation in fMRI, PET, and EEG. RESULTS >EEG shows significant changes for burst stimulation compared to tonic and sham stimulation; evident by increased activity at dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dPFC), primary somatosensory cortex, and posterior cingulate cortex (PSC) in alpha frequency band. PET further confirmed by showing increased tracer capitation for burst in dACC, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC), parahippocampus, and fusiform gyrus. Furthermore, fMRI showed burst changes in dACC, dPFC, pgACC, cerebellum, hypothalamus, and premotor cortex. A conjunction analysis between tonic and burst stimulation demonstrated theta activity is commonly modulated in somatosensory cortex and PSC. CONCLUSION Our data suggest that burst and tonic stimulation modulate ascending lateral and descending pain inhibitory pathways. Burst stimulation adds by modulating the medial pain pathway, possibly by direct modulation of spinothalamic pathway, as suggested by animal research. Burst normalizes an imbalance between ascending pain via medial system and descending pain inhibitory activity, which could be a plausible reason it's better than to tonic stimulation.

scholarly journals Neocortical substrates of feelings evoked with music in the ACC, insula, and somatosensory cortex

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Koelsch ◽  
Vincent K. M. Cheung ◽  
Sebastian Jentschke ◽  
John-Dylan Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Premotor Cortex ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Independent Experiment ◽  
Subjective Feeling ◽  
Secondary Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Feeling States

AbstractNeurobiological models of emotion focus traditionally on limbic/paralimbic regions as neural substrates of emotion generation, and insular cortex (in conjunction with isocortical anterior cingulate cortex, ACC) as the neural substrate of feelings. An emerging view, however, highlights the importance of isocortical regions beyond insula and ACC for the subjective feeling of emotions. We used music to evoke feelings of joy and fear, and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to decode representations of feeling states in functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) data of n = 24 participants. Most of the brain regions providing information about feeling representations were neocortical regions. These included, in addition to granular insula and cingulate cortex, primary and secondary somatosensory cortex, premotor cortex, frontal operculum, and auditory cortex. The multivoxel activity patterns corresponding to feeling representations emerged within a few seconds, gained in strength with increasing stimulus duration, and replicated results of a hypothesis-generating decoding analysis from an independent experiment. Our results indicate that several neocortical regions (including insula, cingulate, somatosensory and premotor cortices) are important for the generation and modulation of feeling states. We propose that secondary somatosensory cortex, which covers the parietal operculum and encroaches on the posterior insula, is of particular importance for the encoding of emotion percepts, i.e., preverbal representations of subjective feeling.

scholarly journals Altered functional connectivity relates to motor performance deficits in bipolar but not unipolar depression

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara E. Marten ◽  
Aditya Singh ◽  
Anna M. Muellen ◽  
Soeren M. Noack ◽  
Vladislav Kozyrev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Motor Performance ◽  
Primary Motor Cortex ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Motor Area ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Performance Deficits ◽  
Posterior Cingulate

Underpinnings of psychomotor deficits in bipolar and unipolar depression remain underexplored. Here, we hypothesize that motor performance deficits in patients may be partially explained by altered functional connectivities between hand primary motor cortex and posterior cingulate cortex with supplementary motor area. 95 participants between 18-65 years of age, including bipolar depressed, unipolar depressed, and sex-, age-, and education-matched healthy controls, participated in this observational study with two separate visits about five weeks apart, during which the patients received psychopharmacological treatment. Motor performance was measured with a finger-tapping-task and related to functional connectivity from individual seeds in hand primary motor cortex and posterior cingulate cortex as well as to the default mode and sensory motor networks from resting state functional MRI data. 79 participants (45.6% females, 21 bipolar depressed, 27 unipolar depressed and 31 healthy controls) were included in the analysis. Using a finger-tapping-task, the groups differed in motor performance (ANOVA factor group F(2,76) = 4.122; p = 0.020) and bipolar depressed but not unipolar depressed showed performance deficits compared to controls (post-hoc-test p = 0.023 and p = 0.158 respectively). Behavioral performance correlated with functional coupling of posterior cingulate cortex - supplementary motor area, but not with coupling of primary motor cortex - supplementary motor area at cluster-wise correction level p FWEc < 0.05. Correlation differences were seen in posterior cingulate cortex - supplementary motor area (healthy controls>bipolar depressed, unipolar depressed>bipolar depressed) at second visit and in primary motor cortex - supplementary motor area (bipolar depressed>unipolar depressed) at both visits at cluster-wise correction level p FWEc<0.05. Motor performance did not relate to functional coupling of sensory motor network - anterior (visit 1 p = 0.375, visit 2 p = 0.700) or - posterior (visit 1 p = 0.903, visit 2 p = 0.772) default mode network. Motor performance deficits were seen exclusively in bipolar depressed and related to reduced posterior cingulate cortex - supplementary motor area functional connectivity at rest. Our results shed new light on a possible disruption in the anticorrelation between these regions, which seems fundamental for the preservation of motor skills. Given that nuisance factors were controlled for in the study, it is unlikely that the main results are biased by lefthanders, medication load, seed volumes, or differences in movements during MRI scanning. If these findings are confirmed, new targeted non-invasive interventions, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, may be more effective against psychomotor deficits in bipolar depression, when aimed at modulating the supplementary motor area.

scholarly journals Magnetoencephalography Responses to Unpredictable and Predictable Rare Somatosensory Stimuli in Healthy Adult Humans

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qianru Xu ◽  
Chaoxiong Ye ◽  
Jarmo A. Hämäläinen ◽  
Elisa M. Ruohonen ◽  
Xueqiao Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Prediction Error ◽  
Secondary Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Stimulus Energy ◽  
Source Level ◽  
Somatosensory Stimuli ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Increased Activity ◽  
Little Finger

Mismatch brain responses to unpredicted rare stimuli are suggested to be a neural indicator of prediction error, but this has rarely been studied in the somatosensory modality. Here, we investigated how the brain responds to unpredictable and predictable rare events. Magnetoencephalography responses were measured in adults frequently presented with somatosensory stimuli (FRE) that were occasionally replaced by two consecutively presented rare stimuli [unpredictable rare stimulus (UR) and predictable rare stimulus (PR); p = 0.1 for each]. The FRE and PR were electrical stimulations administered to either the little finger or the forefinger in a counterbalanced manner between the two conditions. The UR was a simultaneous electrical stimulation to both the forefinger and the little finger (for a smaller subgroup, the UR and FRE were counterbalanced for the stimulus properties). The grand-averaged responses were characterized by two main components: one at 30–100 ms (M55) and the other at 130–230 ms (M150) latency. Source-level analysis was conducted for the primary somatosensory cortex (SI) and the secondary somatosensory cortex (SII). The M55 responses were larger for the UR and PR than for the FRE in both the SI and the SII areas and were larger for the UR than for the PR. For M150, both investigated areas showed increased activity for the UR and the PR compared to the FRE. Interestingly, although the UR was larger in stimulus energy (stimulation of two fingers at the same time) and had a larger prediction error potential than the PR, the M150 responses to these two rare stimuli did not differ in source strength in either the SI or the SII area. The results suggest that M55, but not M150, can possibly be associated with prediction error signals. These findings highlight the need for disentangling prediction error and rareness-related effects in future studies investigating prediction error signals.

Serum Vitamin D and Cingulate Cortex Thickness in Older Adults: Quantitative MRI of the Brain

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 1063-1071 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gonzague Foucault ◽  
Guillaume T Duval ◽  
Romain Simon ◽  
Olivier Beauchet ◽  
Mickael Dinomais ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Vitamin D ◽  
Brain Mri ◽  
Serum Vitamin ◽  
Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽  
Vitamin D Insufficiency ◽  
Anterior Cingulate ◽  
Posterior Cingulate ◽  
Significant Difference

Background: Vitamin D insufficiency is associated with brain changes, and cognitive and mobility declines in older adults. Method: Two hundred and fifteen Caucasian older community-dwellers (mean±SD, 72.1±5.5years; 40% female) received a blood test and brain MRI. The thickness of perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, midcingulate cortex and posterior cingulate cortex was measured using FreeSurfer from T1-weighted MR images. Age, gender, education, BMI, mean arterial pressure, comorbidities, use of vitamin D supplements or anti-vascular drugs, MMSE, GDS, IADL, serum calcium and vitamin B9 concentrations, creatinine clearance were used as covariables. Results: Participants with vitamin D insufficiency (n=80) had thinner total cingulate thickness than the others (24.6±1.9mm versus 25.3±1.4mm, P=0.001); a significant difference found for all 3 regions. Vitamin D insufficiency was cross-sectionally associated with a decreased total cingulate thickness (β=- 0.49, P=0.028). Serum 25OHD concentration correlated positively with the thickness of perigenual anterior (P=0.011), midcingulate (P=0.013) and posterior cingulate cortex (P=0.021). Conclusion: Vitamin D insufficiency was associated with thinner cingulate cortex in the studied sample of older adults. These findings provide insight into the pathophysiology of cognitive and mobility declines in older adults with vitamin D insufficiency.

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