Abstract This review presents an overview of studies investigating white-matter integrity in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). There is ...increasing evidence for white matter alterations in OCD. In adult patients the majority of all studies reported abnormalities in terms of decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) compared to healthy volunteers. Although findings are heterogeneous, the cingulate bundle, the corpus callosum and the anterior limb of the internal capsule are most commonly affected by decreased white matter integrity in adult OCD patients. In pediatric and adolescent patients initial evidence points more towards increased white matter connectivity. Thus, current results suggest alterations in various white matter regions in both pediatric and adult OCD patients. They indicate that alterations may vary as a function of clinical characteristics and may be amenable to pharmacologic treatment. Although the findings have important implications for the neurobiology of OCD they also raise a number of important questions that are discussed in this review and need to be taken into consideration in future studies.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by anxiety-provoking, obsessive thoughts (i.e., obsessions) which patients react to with compulsive behaviors (i.e., compulsions). Due to the ...transient feeling of relief following the reduction of obsession-induced anxiety, compulsions are often described as relieving or even rewarding. Several studies investigated functional activation during reward processing in OCD, but findings are heterogeneous up to now and little is known about potential alterations in functional connectivity.
Against this background we studied OCD patients (
= 44) and healthy controls (
= 37) during the receipt of monetary reward by assessing both activation and functional connectivity.
Patients showed a decreased activation in several frontal regions and the posterior cingulate (PCC, BA31) together with a stronger connectivity between the PCC and the vmPFC (BA10).
Present findings demonstrate an increased connectivity in patients within major nodes of the default mode network (DMN)-a network known to be involved in the evaluation of internal mental states. These results may indicate an increased activity of internal, self-related processing at the expense of a normal responsiveness toward external rewards and incentives. This, in turn, may explain the constant urge for additional reinforcement and patients' inability to inhibit their compulsive behaviors.
Macroscale white matter pathways are the infrastructure for large-scale communication in the human brain and a prerequisite for healthy brain function. Disruptions in the brain's connectivity ...architecture play an important role in many psychiatric and neurological brain disorders. Here we show that connections important for global communication and network integration are particularly vulnerable to brain alterations across multiple brain disorders. We report on a cross-disorder connectome study comprising in total 1,033 patients and 1,154 matched controls across 8 psychiatric and 4 neurological disorders. We extracted disorder connectome fingerprints for each of these 12 disorders and combined them into a 'cross-disorder disconnectivity involvement map' describing the level of cross-disorder involvement of each white matter pathway of the human brain network. Network analysis revealed connections central to global network communication and integration to display high disturbance across disorders, suggesting a general cross-disorder involvement and the importance of these pathways in normal function.
ABSTRACT
Objective
Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been found to be a promising approach for the treatment of recurrent courses of depression. However, little is known about their neural ...mechanisms. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study set out to investigate activation changes in corticolimbic regions during implicit emotion regulation.
Methods
Depressed patients with a recurrent lifetime history were randomized to receive a 2-week MBI (
n
= 16 completers) or psychoeducation and resting (PER;
n
= 22 completers). Before and after, patients underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while labeling the affect of angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions and completed questionnaires assessing ruminative brooding, the ability to decenter from such thinking, and depressive symptoms.
Results
Activation decreased in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in response to angry faces after MBI (
p
< .01, voxel-wise family-wise error rate correction,
T
> 3.282; 56 mm
3
; Montreal Neurological Institute peak coordinate: 32, 24, 40), but not after PER. This change was highly correlated with increased decentring (
r
= −0.52,
p
= .033), decreased brooding (
r
= 0.60,
p
= .010), and decreased symptoms (
r
= 0.82,
p
= .005). Amygdala activation in response to happy faces decreased after PER (
p
< .01, family-wise error rate corrected; 392 mm
3
; Montreal Neurological Institute peak coordinate: 28, −4, −16), whereas the MBI group showed no significant change.
Conclusions
The dlPFC is involved in emotion regulation, namely, reappraisal or suppression of negative emotions. Decreased right dlPFC activation might indicate that, after the MBI, patients abstained from engaging in elaboration or suppression of negative affective stimuli; a putatively important mechanism for preventing the escalation of negative mood.
Trial Registration: The study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02801513; 16/06/2016).
Background
To study hippocampus subfield volumes in patients after microsurgical clipping (MC) and/or endovascular coiling (EC) of intracranial aneurysms.
Methods
Hippocampus subfield volumetry was ...performed using FreeSurfer v6.0 in 51 patients (35 females, mean age 54.9 ± 11.9 years, range 24–78 years). Visual inspection of image and segmentation quality was performed prior to statistical analyses. Multiple regression analysis, controlled for age, sex, and side of treatment, was used to assess the impact of prior MC and history of subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) on hippocampus subfield volumes (cornu ammonis (CA)-2/3, CA-4, subiculum). Partial correlation analyses were used to assess effect of multiple treatments on hippocampus subfield volumes.
Results
Prior MC was significantly associated with lower hippocampal subfield volumes in MC patients for right and left CA-2/3 (
β
= -22.32 -40.18, -4.45;
p
= 0.016 and
β
= -20.03 -39.38, -0.68;
p
= 0.043) and right CA-4 (
β
= -17.00 -33.86, 0.12;
p
= 0.048). History of SAH was not significantly associated with hippocampal subfield volumes. We observed a higher disease burden in the MC cohort. The number of aneurysms correlated with right-sided hippocampal subfield volumes while the number of treatment interventions did not.
Conclusion
In this explorative study, we found that history of MC was significantly associated with lower volumes in distinct hippocampal subfields, which may be a consequence of a more extensive treatment. This could indicate specific atrophy of CA-2/3 after MC and should motivate hippocampal subfield assessment in larger cohorts.
Previous research indicates that mothers take a larger responsibility for child care during the night and that they have more disturbed sleep than fathers. The purpose of this study was to determine ...whether such a sleep imbalance exists in working parents of young children, and the extent to which it depends on the way sleep is measured. The study also examined whether imbalanced sleep between parents predicts parental stress and relationship satisfaction.
Sleep was measured for seven consecutive days in 60 parenting couples (average age of the youngest child: 3.3 years ± SD 2.5 years). Actigraphs were worn across the week, and ratings of sleep, parental stress, and relationship satisfaction were made daily.
Mothers perceived their sleep quality as worse (
= -0.38 scale units, p<0.001), with more wake periods (
= +0.96 awakenings, p<0.001) but with longer sleep duration (
= +32.4 min, p<0.01) than fathers. Actigraphy data confirmed that mothers slept longer than fathers (
= +28.03 min, p<0.001), but no significant differences were found for wake time, number of awakenings or who woke up first during shared awakenings. Furthermore, there was no difference in whether mothers and fathers slept sufficiently. The level of sleep imbalance between parents did not predict parental stress. A larger imbalance in subjective sleep sufficiency predicted decreased relationship satisfaction for fathers (b= -0.13 scale units, p<0.01) but increased relationship satisfaction for mothers (b= 0.14 scale units, p<0.05). No other sleep imbalance measures predicted relationship satisfaction.
Our findings are in line with previous research on sleep in men and women in general, with longer sleep and subjective reports of sleep disturbances in women, rather than previous research on sleep in parents of young children. Thus, we found no evidence of a sleep imbalance when both parents have similar working responsibilities.
Objective: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by anxiety-provoking, obsessive thoughts (i.e., obsessions) which patients react to with compulsive behaviors (i.e., compulsions). Due ...to the transient feeling of relief following the reduction of obsession-induced anxiety, compulsions are often described as relieving or even rewarding. Several studies investigated functional activation during reward processing in OCD, but findings are heterogeneous up to now and little is known about potential alterations in functional connectivity. Method: Against this background we studied OCD patients (n=44) and healthy controls (n=37) during the receipt ofmonetary reward by assessing both activation and functional connectivity. Results: Patients showed a decreased activation in several frontal regions and the posterior cingulate (PCC, BA31) together with a stronger connectivity between the PCC and the vmPFC (BA10). Conclusion: Present findings demonstrate an increased connectivity in patients within major nodes of the default mode network (DMN)-a network known to be involved in the evaluation of internal mental states. These results may indicate an increased activity of internal, self-related processing at the expense of a normal responsiveness toward external rewards and incentives. This, in turn, may explain the constant urge for additional reinforcement and patients' inability to inhibit their compulsive behaviors.
Hintergrund und Zielsetzung: Das claustrum ist eine struktur des Vorderhirns dessen Funktion weitgehend unbekannt ist und die mit subplate-Neuronen im rahmen der fruhen Hirnentwicklung in Verbindung ...gebracht wird. Da Fruhgeburtlichkeit (<37 ssW) in dieser von subplate-Neuronen abhangigen Hirnentwicklungsphase stattfindet untersuchten wir ob fruhgeborene Erwachsene (FGE) morphologische Veranderungen des claustrums aufweisen. Material und Methoden: Untersucht wurden cMrTs der bayrischen Entwicklungsstudie (BEST) an FGE im Alter von 26 Jahren und gleichaltrigen Kontrollen. Durch einen fur den Fruhgeborenenstatus verblindeten Neuroradiologen wurde das claustrum individuell standardisiert segmentiert (n = 197; FGE n = 93/Kontrollen n = 104) und sein Volumen extrahiert. Aus DTI-Daten (n = 129) wurde die Mean Diffusivity (MD) des claustrums bestimmt. Die statistische Auswertung erfolgte mit einer univariaten Varianzanalyse korrigiert fur Geschlecht, scanner und gesamtes Hirnvolumen und Post-hoc t-Tests. Ergebnisse: Die claustrumvolumina unterschieden sich nicht signifikant zwischen FGE und Kontrollen. Die MD des rechten claustrums war bei FGE signifikant erhoht (p = 0.001). Innerhalb der Fruhgeborenenkohorte zeigte sich eine positive Korrelation der claustrum-MD rechts mit der behandlungsintensitat in der Neonatalperiode (Pearson's r=0.408; p = 0.001). Schlussfolgerung: Die erhohte MD des rechten claustrums bei FGE lasst auf eine verminderte Zellintegritat dieser struktur schliessen. Es bestehen Korrelationen mit adversen Umstanden in der Neonatalperiode, die moglicherweise einen negativen Einfluss auf die Entwicklung der subplate-Neuronen und konsekutiv auf das claustrum haben konnen.
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