Quality assurance (QA) is vital for ensuring the integrity of processed neuroimaging data for use in clinical neurosciences research. Manual QA (visual inspection) of processed brains for cortical ...surface reconstruction errors is resource-intensive, particularly with large datasets. Several semi-automated QA tools use quantitative detection of subjects for editing based on outlier brain regions. There were two project goals: (1) evaluate the assumption that statistical outliers are related to errors of cortical extension, and (2) examine whether error identification and correction significantly impacts estimation of cortical parameters and established brain-behavior relationships. T1 MPRAGE images (
N
= 530) of healthy adults were obtained from the NKI-Rockland Sample and reconstructed using Freesurfer 5.3. Visual inspection of T1 images was conducted for: (1) participants (
n
= 110) with outlier values (
z
scores ±3
SD
) for subcortical and cortical segmentation volumes (outlier group), and (2) a random sample of remaining participants (
n
= 110) with segmentation values that did not meet the outlier criterion (non-outlier group). The outlier group had 21% more participants with visual inspection-identified errors than participants in the non-outlier group, with a medium effect size (
Φ
= 0.22). Nevertheless, a considerable portion of images with errors of cortical extension were found in the non-outlier group (41%). Although nine brain regions significantly changed size from pre- to post-editing (with effect sizes ranging from 0.26 to 0.59), editing did not substantially change the correlations of neurocognitive tasks and brain volumes (
p
s > 0.05)
.
Statistically-based QA, although less resource intensive, is not accurate enough to supplant visual inspection. We discuss practical implications of our findings to guide resource allocation decisions for image processing.
Background
Previous studies have demonstrated the presence of a social cognition factor as an element of general cognition in healthy control and clinical populations. Recently developed measures of ...social cognition include the social perception and faces subtests of the Wechsler Advanced Clinical Solutions (ACS) Social Cognition module. While these measures have been validated on various clinical samples, they have not been studied in alcoholics. Alcoholism has been associated with emotional abnormalities and diminished social cognitive functioning as well as neuropathology of brain areas underlying social processing abilities. We used the ACS Social Perception and Faces subtests to assess alcoholism‐related impairments in social cognition.
Methods
Social cognitive functioning was assessed in 77 abstinent alcoholic individuals (37 women) and 59 nonalcoholic control participants (29 women), using measures of the ACS Social Cognition module and subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale‐Fourth Edition (WAIS‐IV) that contain a social cognition component (Picture Completion and Comprehension). Group and gender differences in ACS and WAIS‐IV performance were assessed, as well as relationships between measures of alcoholism severity and social cognitive functioning.
Results
Alcoholics performed significantly worse than nonalcoholics on the ACS measures of Affect Naming and Faces Content. Alcoholic men were impaired relative to alcoholic women on Prosody Face Matching and Faces Content scores. Among alcoholics, longer durations of heavy drinking were associated with poorer performance on Affect Naming, and a greater number of daily drinks were associated with lower Prosody Face Matching performance. For alcoholic women, a longer duration of abstinence was associated with better performance on Affect Naming.
Conclusions
Alcoholic men and women showed different patterns of associations between alcoholism indices and clinically validated social cognition assessments. These findings extend into the social cognition domain, previous literature demonstrating the presence of cognitive deficits in alcoholism, their association with alcoholism severity, and variability by gender. Moreover, because impairments in social cognition can persist despite extended abstinence, they have important implications for relapse prevention.
This meta-analysis evaluated the extent to which executive function can be understood with structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Studies included structural in schizophrenia (
k
= 8;
...n
= 241) and healthy controls (k = 12;
n
= 1660), and functional in schizophrenia (k = 4; n = 104) and healthy controls (
k
= 12;
n
= 712). Results revealed a positive association in the brain behavior relationship when pooled across schizophrenia and control samples for structural (
pr
= 0.27) and functional (
pr
= 0.29) modalities. Subgroup analyses revealed no significant difference for functional neuroimaging (
pr
= .43, 95%CI = -.08-.77,
p
= .088) but with structural neuroimaging (
pr
= .37, 95%CI = -.08-.69,
p
= .015) the association to executive functions is lower in the control group. Subgroup analyses also revealed no significant differences in the strength of the brain-behavior relationship in the schizophrenia group (
pr
= .59, 95%CI = .58-.61,
p
= .881) or the control group (
pr
= 0.19, 95%CI = 0.18–0.19,
p
= 0.920), suggesting concordance.
Abstract Investigations into the specific association of amygdala volume, a critical aspect of the fronto-limbic emotional circuitry, and aggression have produced results broadly consistent with the ...‘larger is more powerful’ doctrine. However, recent reports suggest that the ventral and dorsal aspects of the amygdala play functionally specific roles, respectively, in the activation and control of behavior. Therefore, parceling amygdala volume into dorsal and ventral components might prove productive in testing hypotheses regarding volumetric association to aggression, and impulsivity, a related aspect of self-control. We sought to test this hypothesis in a group of 41 psychiatric patients who received standard magnetic resonance imaging and a psychometric protocol including aggression and impulsivity measures. Whole amygdala volumes were not associated with aggression or impulsivity, but significant correlations were found when dorsal/ventral amygdalae were analyzed separately. Specifically, left and right ventral amygdala volume was positively associated with motor impulsivity, and left dorsal amygdala was negatively associated with aggression. Results are discussed in terms of an activation and control model of brain-behavior relations. Potential relevance to the continuum of amygdala hyper- to hypo-activation and aggression is discussed.
Cortical morphology of visual creativity Gansler, David A.; Moore, Dana W.; Susmaras, Teresa M. ...
Neuropsychologia,
07/2011, Letnik:
49, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
► Conducted an examination of creativity gray matter correlates. ► Tested for parietal and frontal gray matter correlates. ► Analysis confirmed only right parietal correlates of creativity. ► ...Discusses the potential contribution of parietal cortex to generativity.
The volume of cortical tissue devoted to a function often influences the quality of a person's ability to perform that function. Up to now only white matter correlates of creativity have been reported, and we wanted to learn if the creative visuospatial performance on the figural Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) is associated with measurements of cerebral gray matter volume in the regions of the brain that are thought to be important in divergent reasoning and visuospatial processing.
Eighteen healthy college educated men (mean age=40.78; 15 right-handers) were recruited (via advertisement) as participants. High-resolution MRI scans were acquired on a 1.5T MRI scanner. Voxel-based morphometry regression analyses of TTCT to cortical volume were restrained within the anatomic regions identified.
One significant positive focus of association with TTCT emerged within the right parietal lobe gray matter (MNI coordinates: 44, −24, 63; 276 voxels).
Based on theories of parietal lobe function and the requirements of the TTCT, the area observed may be related due to its dominant role in global aspects of attention and visuospatial processing including the capacity for manipulating spatial representations.
Cigarette smoking is causally linked to renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, associations for individual RCC histologies are not well described. Newly available data on tobacco use from ...population-based cancer registries allow characterization of associations with individual RCC types.
We analyzed data for 30,282 RCC cases from 8 states that collected tobacco use information for a National Program of Cancer Registry project. We compared the prevalence and adjusted prevalence ratios (aPR) of cigarette smoking (current vs. never, former vs. never) among individuals diagnosed between 2011 and 2016 with clear cell RCC, papillary RCC, chromophobe RCC, renal collecting duct/medullary carcinoma, cyst-associated RCC, and unclassified RCC.
Of 30,282 patients with RCC, 50.2% were current or former cigarette smokers. By histology, proportions of current or formers smokers ranged from 38% in patients with chromophobe carcinoma to 61.9% in those with collecting duct/medullary carcinoma. The aPRs (with the most common histology, clear cell RCC, as referent group) for current and former cigarette smoking among chromophobe RCC cases (4.9% of our analytic sample) were 0.58 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.50-0.67 and 0.88 (95% CI, 0.81-0.95), respectively. Other aPRs were slightly increased (papillary RCC and unclassified RCC, current smoking only), slightly decreased (unclassified RCC, former smoking only), or not significantly different from 1.0 (collecting duct/medullary carcinoma and cyst-associated RCC).
Compared with other RCC histologic types, chromophobe RCC has a weaker (if any) association with smoking.
This study shows the value of population-based cancer registries' collection of smoking data, especially for epidemiologic investigation of rare cancers.
Cognitive estimation and its assessment Gansler, David A.; Varvaris, Mark; Swenson, Lance ...
Journal of clinical and experimental neuropsychology,
01/2014, Letnik:
36, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Purpose. We evaluated the internal consistency and construct and criterion validity of a 10-item revision of the Cognitive Estimation Task (CET-R) developed by Shallice and Evans to assess ...problem-solving hypothesis generation. Method. The CET-R was administered to 216 healthy adults from the Aging, Brain Imaging, and Cognition study and 57 adult outpatients with schizophrenia. Results. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (EFA and CFA) of the healthy sample revealed that seven of the 10 CET-R items constitute a more internally consistent scale (CET-R-7). Though EFA indicated that two CET-R-7 dimensions might be present (length and speed/time estimation, respectively), CFA confirmed that a single factor best represents the seven items. The CET-R-7 was modeled best by crystallized intelligence, adequately by fluid intelligence, and inadequately by visuospatial problem solving. Performance on the CET-R-7 correlated significantly with the neuropsychological domains of speed and fluency, but not memory or executive function. Finally, CET-R performance differed by diagnosis, sex, and education, but not age. Conclusions. This study identified an internally consistent set of items that measures the construct of cognitive estimation. This construct relates to several important dimensions of psychological functioning, including crystallized and fluid intelligence, generativity, and self-monitoring. It also is sensitive to cognitive dysfunction in adults with schizophrenia.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract Mindfulness is paying attention, non-judgmentally, to experience in the moment. Mindfulness training reduces depression and anxiety and influences neural processes in midline ...self-referential and lateralized somatosensory and executive networks. Although mindfulness benefits emotion regulation, less is known about its relationship to anger and the corresponding neural correlates. This study examined the relationship of mindful awareness and brain hemodynamics of angry face processing, and the impact of mindfulness training. Eighteen healthy volunteers completed an angry face processing fMRI paradigm and measurement of mindfulness and anger traits. Ten of these participants were recruited from a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) class and also completed imaging and other assessments post-training. Self-reported mindful awareness increased after MBSR, but trait anger did not change. Baseline mindful awareness was negatively related to left inferior parietal lobule activation to angry faces; trait anger was positively related to right middle frontal gyrus and bilateral angular gyrus. No significant pre-post changes in angry face processing were found, but changes in trait mindful awareness and anger were associated with sub-threshold differences in paralimbic activation. These preliminary and hypothesis-generating findings, suggest the analysis of possible impact of mindfulness training on anger may begin with individual differences in angry face processing.
: Background: Evidence suggests that alcoholics exhibit particular deficits in brain systems involving the prefrontal cortex, but few studies have directly compared patients with and without ...Korsakoff's syndrome on measures of prefrontal integrity.
Methods: Neuropsychological tasks sensitive to dysfunction of frontal brain systems were administered, along with standard tests of memory, intelligence, and visuospatial abilities, to 50 healthy, abstinent, nonamnesic alcoholics, 6 patients with alcohol‐induced persisting amnestic disorder (Korsakoff's syndrome), 6 brain‐damaged controls with right hemisphere lesions, and 82 healthy nonalcoholic controls.
Results: Korsakoff patients were impaired on tests of memory, fluency, cognitive flexibility, and perseveration. Non‐Korsakoff alcoholics showed some frontal system deficits as well, but these were mild. Cognitive deficits in non‐Korsakoff alcoholics were related to age, duration of abstinence (less than 5 years), duration of abuse (more than 20 years), and amount of alcohol intake.
Conclusions: Abnormalities of frontal system functioning are most apparent in alcoholics with Korsakoff's syndrome. In non‐Korsakoff alcoholics, factors contributing to cognitive performance are age, duration of abstinence, duration of alcoholism, and amount of alcohol consumed.
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