Is Social Phobia a “Mis-Communication” Disorder? Brain Functional Connectivity during Face Perception Differs between Patients with Social Phobia and Healthy Control Subjects

ObjectiveDespite being the subject of many studies over the past two decades, mechanisms underlying psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) are still poorly understood. We tried to address this issue by utilizing brain functional connectivity analysis to identify brain regions with abnormal activities in patients with PNES. In a case-control study, we performed graph based network analysis, a robust technique that determines the organization of brain connectivity and characterizes topological properties of the brain networks.MethodsTwelve individuals with PNES and twenty-one healthy control subjects were examined. Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) was acquired. All subjects were asked to keep their eyes open during the scanning process. The rsfMRI analysis consisted of pre-processing, extracting the functional connectivity matrix (FCM) based on the AAL atlas, threshold for binary FCM, constructing a graph network from FCM and extracting graph features, and finally statistical analysis. For all cortical and subcortical regions of the AAL atlas, we calculated measures of ‘degree,’ which is one of the features of the graph theory. Results: Our results revealed that, as compared to the healthy control subjects, patients with PNES had a significantly lower degree in some brain regions including their left and right insula (INS), right Putamen (PUT), left and right Supramarginal gyrus (SMG), right Middle occipital gyrus (MOG), and left and right Rolandic operculum (ROL). In contrast, degree was significantly greater in two regions [i.e., right Caudate (CAU) and left Inferior frontal gyrus orbital part (ORBinf)] in patients with PNES compared to that in controls.ConclusionOur findings suggest that functional connectivity of several major brain regions are different in patients with PNES compared with that in healthy individuals. While there is hypoactivity in regions important in perception, motor control, self- awareness, and cognitive functioning (e.g., insula) and also movement regulation (e.g., putamen), there is hyperactivity in areas involved in feedback processing (i.e., using information from past experiences to influence future actions and decisions) (e.g., caudate) in patients with PNES. The observation that individuals with PNES suffer from a wide range of abnormal activities in functional connectivity of their brain networks is consistent with the fact that PNES occur in a heterogeneous patient population; no single mechanism or contributing factor could explain PNES in all patients.

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Dynamic functional connectivity changes associated with dementia in Parkinson’s disease

Brain ◽

10.1093/brain/awz192 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 142 (9) ◽

pp. 2860-2872 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

Eleonora Fiorenzato ◽

Antonio P Strafella ◽

Jinhee Kim ◽

Roberta Schifano ◽

Luca Weis ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Parkinson’S Disease ◽

Parkinson's Disease ◽

Cognitive Impairment ◽

Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽

Functional Connectivity ◽

Parkinson’S Disease Dementia ◽

Dynamic Functional Connectivity ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Healthy Control ◽

Normal Cognition

AbstractDynamic functional connectivity captures temporal variations of functional connectivity during MRI acquisition and it may be a suitable method to detect cognitive changes in Parkinson’s disease. In this study, we evaluated 118 patients with Parkinson’s disease matched for age, sex and education with 35 healthy control subjects. Patients with Parkinson’s disease were classified with normal cognition (n = 52), mild cognitive impairment (n = 46), and dementia (n = 20) based on an extensive neuropsychological evaluation. Resting state functional MRI and a sliding-window approach were used to study the dynamic functional connectivity. Dynamic analysis suggested two distinct connectivity ‘States’ across the entire group: a more frequent, segregated brain state characterized by the predominance of within-network connections, State I, and a less frequent, integrated state with strongly connected functional internetwork components, State II. In Parkinson’s disease, State I occurred 13.89% more often than in healthy control subjects, paralleled by a proportional reduction of State II. Parkinson’s disease subgroups analyses showed the segregated state occurred more frequently in Parkinson’s disease dementia than in mild cognitive impairment and normal cognition groups. Further, patients with Parkinson’s disease dementia dwelled significantly longer in the segregated State I, and showed a significant lower number of transitions to the strongly interconnected State II compared to the other subgroups. Our study indicates that dementia in Parkinson’s disease is characterized by altered temporal properties in dynamic connectivity. In addition, our results show that increased dwell time in the segregated state and reduced number of transitions between states are associated with presence of dementia in Parkinson’s disease. Further studies on dynamic functional connectivity changes could help to better understand the progressive dysfunction of networks between Parkinson’s disease cognitive states.

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Brain-Gut Axis Modulation of Acupuncture in Functional Dyspepsia: A Preliminary Resting-State fcMRI Study

Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine ◽

10.1155/2015/860463 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 ◽

pp. 1-11 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Jiliang Fang ◽

Danhong Wang ◽

Qing Zhao ◽

Yang Hong ◽

Yulian Jin ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Functional Dyspepsia ◽

Medial Temporal Lobe ◽

Acupuncture Treatment ◽

Gastrointestinal Symptoms ◽

Signs And Symptoms ◽

Control Group ◽

Healthy Control ◽

Brain Functional Connectivity ◽

Acupuncture Effects

Objective. To explore acupuncture effects on brain functional connectivity in patients with functional dyspepsia (FD).Methods. Eight patients in an acupuncture treatment group and ten healthy adults in the control group participated in the study. Acupuncture effectiveness was evaluated based on changes of the gastrointestinal symptoms, gastric motility measurements, and gastrin levels and comparisons with the control group when appropriate. To investigate functional connectivity changes related to FD and potential modulation after acupuncture, a set of regions of interest (ROIs) were selected according to previous fMRI reports of acupuncture.Results. Patients showed significant improvements of FD signs and symptoms after acupuncture treatments. For all of the ROIs, we identified subportions of the networks showing reduced connectivity in patients with FD. Connectivity between the ROIs and corresponding disease targets showed significant improvement after acupuncture treatment (P<0.05) in all ROIs except for right medial temporal lobe-hippocampus and right inferior parietal lobule.Conclusion. Functional connectivity of the brain is changed in patients with FD but approximates that in healthy control after acupuncture treatment. The relief of gastrointestinal signs and symptoms by acupuncture is likely due to the normalization of brain-gut axis associated with FD.

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Functional Connectivity Between Anterior Insula and Key Nodes of Frontoparietal Executive Control and Salience Networks Distinguish Bipolar Depression From Unipolar Depression and Healthy Control Subjects

Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging ◽

10.1016/j.bpsc.2018.01.013 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 3 (5) ◽

pp. 473-484 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Kristen K. Ellard ◽

Jared P. Zimmerman ◽

Navneet Kaur ◽

Koene R.A. Van Dijk ◽

Joshua L. Roffman ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Executive Control ◽

Bipolar Depression ◽

Unipolar Depression ◽

Anterior Insula ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Healthy Control ◽

Key Nodes

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Correcting Cardiorespiratory Noise in Resting-state Functional MRI Data Acquired in Critically Ill Patients

10.1101/2021.11.08.467753 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Suk-tak Chan ◽

William R Sanders ◽

David J Fischer ◽

John E Kirsch ◽

Vitaly Napadow ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Functional Mri ◽

Critically Ill ◽

Critically Ill Patients ◽

Resting State ◽

Brain Injuries ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Healthy Control ◽

Severe Tbi ◽

And Control

Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) is being used to develop diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic biomarkers for critically ill patients with severe brain injuries. In studies of healthy volunteers and non-critically ill patients, prospective cardiorespiratory data are routinely collected to remove non-neuronal fluctuations in the rs-fMRI signal during analysis. However, the feasibility and utility of collecting cardiorespiratory data in critically ill patients on a clinical MRI scanner are unknown. We concurrently acquired rs-fMRI (TR=1250ms), cardiac and respiratory data in 23 critically ill patients with acute severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), and 12 healthy control subjects. We compared the functional connectivity results after denoising with cardiorespiratory data (i.e., RETROICOR) with the results obtained after standard bandpass filtering. Rs-fMRI data in 7 patients could not be analyzed due to imaging artifacts. In 6 of the remaining 16 patients (37.5%), cardiorespiratory data were either incomplete or corrupted. In both patients and control subjects, the functional connectivity corrected with RETROICOR did not significantly differ from that corrected with bandpass filtering of 0.008-0.125 Hz. Collectively, these findings suggest that there is a limited feasibility and utility to prospectively acquire high-quality cardiorespiratory data during rs-fMRI in critically ill patients with severe TBI for physiological correction.

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Enhancement of Platelet Sensitivity to ADP-Aggregation by Isometric Exercise in Arteriosclerotic Patients and its Prevention

Thrombosis and Haemostasis ◽

10.1055/s-0038-1649233 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 37 (02) ◽

pp. 329-338 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Tadahiro Sano ◽

Takeshi Motomiya ◽

Hiroh Yamazaki ◽

Takio Shimamoto

Keyword(s):

Cyclic Amp ◽

Mechanical Stress ◽

Optical Density ◽

Platelet Function ◽

Isometric Exercise ◽

Phosphodiesterase Inhibitor ◽

New Method ◽

Platelet Aggregability ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Healthy Control

SummaryA new method for assessment of platelet sensitivity to ADP-aggregation was devised. Its reproducibility and the correlations between the values obtained by this method, the optical density (O. D.) method, and the screen filtration pressure (SFP) method were assessed. In summary, this method may be said to have three main points:1. It can be performed without centrifugation, avoiding mechanical stress to platelets, using only 0.8 ml. of blood and inexpensive equipment.2. It may reflect different aspects of platelet function from the O. D. method and the SFP method, despite the positive significant correlations between the values obtained by these three methods.3. It was proved to be highly reproducible and is thought to be useful clinically.By using this method, the effect of sustained isometric exercise by handgripping on platelet aggregability was assessed in coronary sclerotic and cerebral arteriosclerotic patients on placebo and EG-626, a newly synthesized cyclic AMP phosphodiesterase inhibitor. On placebo, an enhancement of platelet sensitivity was observed after isometric exercise in coronary and cerebral arteriosclerotic patients but not in healthy control subjects. The enhancement was prevented by pretreatment of EG-626, administered orally 1.5 hours prior to exercise.

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Some Cytokines Levels (IL-6 and IL-10) in Sera Patients with Cutaneous Leismanasis in Nassiriya Province

10.32792/utq/utjsci/vol7/2/1 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 4-6

Keyword(s):

Serum Level ◽

Immune Status ◽

Pure Science ◽

Control Subjects ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Healthy Control

The present study was carried out in the Labs of collage of education for pure science, during period from January 2017 to endDecember of the same year. The immune status investigates for CLpatients by measuring the levels of cytokines (IL6and IL10) in sera using a technique enzyme-linked immune Sorbent adsorptive (ELISA). The study included 120 subjects with (60 CLpatientsL.majar and 60 CLpatients L. tropica with and (30) were healthy control. Increased mean Serum level of IL6 was in the observed in the total patients as compared to control Subjects (224.53pg/ml,70.70pg/ml), the result indicate there was significant difference at (p<0.05) ,such observation was consistent in the patient infected with L.majar and L. tropica (104 .90 pg/ml and 112.78 pg/ml) respectively. The results of the IL10 showed significant difference at (p<0.05)increased of mean Serum level in the total CL patients as compared to control Subjects(226.90 pg/ml 46.77pg/ml,).Ahighly significant difference at (p<0.05) increased observed in patients group infected with L.majar and followed by patients group infected L. tropica (112.78pg/ml and 114.12pg/ml) respectively.These results revealed that the excessive presence of cytokines might play a role in CL patients.

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