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Feng Y, Wang Y, Li X, Dai L, Zhang J. Differences in the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations of spontaneous brain activity between preterm and term infants. Front Neurol 2024; 15:1346632. [PMID: 38497040 PMCID: PMC10941683 DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1346632] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2023] [Accepted: 02/22/2024] [Indexed: 03/19/2024] Open
Abstract
Objectives To date, the majority of research on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) in the developing brain has primarily centered on adolescents and adults, leaving a gap in understanding variations in spontaneous brain activity at rest in preterm infants. This study aimed to uncover and comprehend the distinctions in spontaneous brain activity between preterm and term infants, with the goal of establishing a foundation for assessing the condition of preterm infants. Methods In this study, 14 term infants and 15 preterm infants with equivalent gestational age were carefully chosen from the neonatal unit of Anhui Provincial Children's Hospital. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) intensity was assessed using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) to examine brain activity in both groups. Subsequently, the differences between the term and preterm infants were statistically analyzed using a two-sample t-test. A p-value of <0.05, corrected for the REST Gaussian Random Fields, was deemed to be statistically significant. Results In comparison to the term infant group, the preterm infant group exhibited a significant increase in the ALFF value in the left precuneus, left frontal superior orbital gyrus, and left calcarine cortex. Conclusion Significant variances in spontaneous brain activity have been observed in various regions between term infants and preterm infants of equivalent gestational age. These variations could potentially impact the emotional and cognitive development of preterm infants in the long term.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ye Feng
- Department of Neonatology, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Yuanchong Wang
- Department of Neonatology, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
- Department of Pediatric Medicine, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Xu Li
- Department of Imaging, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Liying Dai
- Neonate Follow-up Center, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
| | - Jian Zhang
- Department of Neonatology, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
- Neonate Follow-up Center, Anhui Provincial Children’s Hospital, Hefei, China
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Chen B, Olson L, Rios A, Salmina M, Linke A, Fishman I. Reduced covariation between brain morphometry and local spontaneous activity in young children with ASD. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhae005. [PMID: 38282456 PMCID: PMC10839841 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2023] [Revised: 12/21/2023] [Accepted: 01/02/2024] [Indexed: 01/30/2024] Open
Abstract
While disruptions in brain maturation in the first years of life in ASD are well documented, little is known about how the brain structure and function are related in young children with ASD compared to typically developing peers. We applied a multivariate pattern analysis to examine the covariation patterns between brain morphometry and local brain spontaneous activity in 38 toddlers and preschoolers with ASD and 31 typically developing children using T1-weighted structural MRI and resting-state fMRI data acquired during natural sleep. The results revealed significantly reduced brain structure-function correlations in ASD. The resultant brain structure and function composite indices were associated with age among typically developing children, but not among those with ASD, suggesting mistiming of typical brain maturational trajectories early in life in autism. Additionally, the brain function composite indices were associated with the overall developmental and adaptive behavior skills in the ASD group, highlighting the neurodevelopmental significance of early local brain activity in autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bosi Chen
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, United States
| | - Lindsay Olson
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94107, United States
| | - Adriana Rios
- Department of Psychology, Brain Development Imaging Laboratories, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120, United States
| | - Madison Salmina
- Department of Psychology, Brain Development Imaging Laboratories, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120, United States
| | - Annika Linke
- Department of Psychology, Brain Development Imaging Laboratories, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120, United States
- SDSU Center for Autism and Developmental Disorders, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120, United States
| | - Inna Fishman
- Department of Psychology, Brain Development Imaging Laboratories, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120, United States
- SDSU Center for Autism and Developmental Disorders, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120, United States
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Huang S, Wen X, Liu Z, Li C, He Y, Liang J, Huang W. Distinguishing functional and structural MRI abnormalities between bipolar and unipolar depression. Front Psychiatry 2023; 14:1343195. [PMID: 38169701 PMCID: PMC10758430 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1343195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2023] [Accepted: 12/05/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024] Open
Abstract
Background This study aims to investigate the underlying characteristics of spontaneous brain activity by analyzing the volumes of the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus, as well as the fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (fALFF) and regional homogeneity (ReHo), in order to differentiate between bipolar disorder (BD) and unipolar depressive disorder. Methods A total of 46 healthy controls, 58 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), and 61 patients with BD participated in the study and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scans. The researchers calculated the differences in volume, fALFF, and ReHo values among the three groups. Additionally, they conducted correlation analyses to examine the relationships between clinical variables and the aforementioned brain measures. Results The results showed that the BD group exhibited increased fALFF in the hippocampus compared to the healthy control (HC) and MDD groups. Furthermore, the ReHo values in the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus were significantly higher in the BD group compared to the HC group. The findings from the person correlation analysis indicated a positive relationship between ReHo values in the hippocampus and both HAMD and HAMA scores. Moreover, there was no correlation between the volumes, fALFF, and ReHo values in the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus, and cognitive function levels (RBANS). Conclusion Taken together, these aberrant patterns of intrinsic brain activity in the hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus may serve as quantitative indicators for distinguishing between BD and unipolar depression.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | - Jiaquan Liang
- Department of Psychiatry, The Third People’s Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, Guangdong, China
| | - Wei Huang
- Department of Psychiatry, The Third People’s Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, Guangdong, China
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Lu H, Wang S, Xue Z, Liu J, Niu X, Gao L, Guo X. Decreased functional concordance in male children with autism spectrum disorder. Autism Res 2023; 16:2263-2274. [PMID: 37787080 DOI: 10.1002/aur.3035] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/03/2023] [Accepted: 09/10/2023] [Indexed: 10/04/2023]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is an early-onset neurodevelopmental condition with altered function of the brain. At present, a variety of functional metrics from neuroimaging techniques have been used to explore ASD neurological mechanisms. However, the concordance of these functional metrics in ASD is still unclear. This study used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data, which were obtained from the open-access Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange database, including 105 children with ASD and 102 demographically matched typically developing (TD) children. Both voxel-wise and volume-wise functional concordance were calculated by combining the dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations, dynamic regional homogeneity, and dynamic global signal correlation. Furthermore, a two-sample t-test was performed to compare the functional concordance between ASD and TD groups. Finally, the relationship between voxel-wise functional concordance and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule subscores was analyzed using the multivariate support vector regression in the ASD group. Compared with the TD group, we found that ASD showed decreased voxel-wise functional concordance in the left superior temporal pole (STGp), right amygdala, and left opercular part of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFGoper). Moreover, decreased functional concordance was associated with restricted and repetitive behaviors in ASD. Our results found altered brain function in the left STGp, right amygdala, and left IFGoper in ASD by functional concordance, indicating that functional concordance may provide new insights into the neurological mechanisms of ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Huibin Lu
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Sha Wang
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Zaifa Xue
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Jing Liu
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Xiaoxia Niu
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Le Gao
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
| | - Xiaonan Guo
- School of Information Science and Engineering, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
- Hebei Key Laboratory of Information Transmission and Signal Processing, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, China
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Ji L, Yoon YB, Hendrix CL, Kennelly EC, Majbri A, Bhatia T, Taylor A, Thomason ME. Developmental coupling of brain iron and intrinsic activity in infants during the first 150 days. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2023; 64:101326. [PMID: 37979299 PMCID: PMC10692666 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101326] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/25/2023] [Revised: 10/30/2023] [Accepted: 11/15/2023] [Indexed: 11/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Brain iron is vital for core neurodevelopmental processes including myelination and neurotransmitter synthesis and, accordingly, iron accumulates in the brain with age. However, little is known about the association between brain iron and neural functioning and how they evolve with age in early infancy. This study investigated brain iron in 48 healthy infants (22 females) aged 64.00 ± 33.28 days by estimating R2 * relaxometry from multi-echo functional MRI (fMRI). Linked independent component analysis was performed to examine the association between iron deposition and spontaneous neural activity, as measured by the amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) by interrogating shared component loadings across modalities. Further, findings were validated in an independent dataset (n = 45, 24 females, 77.93 ± 26.18 days). The analysis revealed developmental coupling between the global R2 * and ALFF within the default mode network (DMN). Furthermore, we observed that this coupling effect significantly increased with age (r = 0.78, p = 9.2e-11). Our results highlight the importance of iron-neural coupling during early development and suggest that the neural maturation of the DMN may correspond to growth in distributed brain iron.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lanxin Ji
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
| | - Youngwoo Bryan Yoon
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Cassandra L Hendrix
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | | | - Amyn Majbri
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Tanya Bhatia
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
| | - Alexis Taylor
- Department of Psychology, Wayne State University, USA
| | - Moriah E Thomason
- Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Department of Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA; Neuroscience Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA
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Xie J, Zhang W, Shen Y, Wei W, Bai Y, Zhang G, Meng N, Yue X, Wang X, Zhang X, Wang M. Abnormal spontaneous brain activity in females with autism spectrum disorders. Front Neurosci 2023; 17:1189087. [PMID: 37521682 PMCID: PMC10379634 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1189087] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/18/2023] [Accepted: 05/08/2023] [Indexed: 08/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Objectives To date, most studies on autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have focused on sample sets that were primarily or entirely composed of males; brain spontaneous activity changes in females remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore changes in the brain spontaneous neural activity in females with ASD. Methods In this study, resting-state functional magnetic resonance images (rs-fMRI) of 41 females with ASD and 41 typically developing (TD) controls were obtained from the ABDIE database. The amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF), fractional ALFF (fALFF), and regional homogeneity (ReHo) of the two groups were calculated to detect the regional brain activity. A two independent sample t-test was used to analyze differences between the ASD and TD groups and a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant after false discovery rate (FDR) correction. Pearson correlation analysis was conducted between social responsiveness scale (SRS) scores and the local activity of significantly different brain regions. Results Compared with the typically developing (TD) group, the values of ALFF and ReHo were significantly increased in the left superior temporal gyrus (STG), while the values of ReHo were significantly decreased in the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), left middle occipital gyrus (MOG), bilateral superior parietal lobule (SPL), and bilateral precuneus in the females with ASD group. Correlation analysis showed that the ReHo of the right precuneus was positively correlated to the total SRS, social communication, and autistic mannerisms. Conclusion Spontaneous activity changes in females with ASD involved multiple brain regions and were related to clinical characteristics. Our results may provide some help for further exploring the neurobiological mechanism of females with ASD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jiapei Xie
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
- Academy of Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Weidong Zhang
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Yu Shen
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Wei Wei
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Yan Bai
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Ge Zhang
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Nan Meng
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
- Academy of Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Xipeng Yue
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
- Academy of Medical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China
| | - Xinhui Wang
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
| | | | - Meiyun Wang
- Department of Medical Imaging, Zhengzhou University People’s Hospital and Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
- Laboratory of Brain Science and Brain-Like Intelligence Technology, Institute for Integrated Medical Science and Engineering, Henan Academy of Sciences, Zhengzhou, China
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