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ObjectiveAnxiety disorders are common, can result in lifelong suffering, and frequently begin before adolescence. Evidence from adults suggests that altered prefrontal-limbic connectivity is a pathophysiological feature of anxiety disorders. More specifically, in adults with anxiety disorders, decreased fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of white matter integrity, has been observed in the uncinate fasciculus, the major tract that connects limbic and prefrontal regions. Because of the early onset of anxiety disorders and the increased incidence in anxiety disorders in females during their reproductive years, it is important to understand whether the reduction in uncinate fasciculus FA exists in children with anxiety disorders and the extent to which this alteration is sex related. To address these issues, the authors assessed FA in the uncinate fasciculus in unmedicated boys and girls with anxiety disorders.MethodsFA measures were derived from diffusion tensor images that were acquired from 98 unmedicated children (ages 8-12); 52 met criteria for generalized anxiety disorder, separation anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, or anxiety disorder not otherwise specified, and 46 were matched control subjects.ResultsTract-based results demonstrated that children with anxiety disorders have significant reductions in uncinate fasciculus FA. A significant sex-by-group interaction and post hoc testing revealed that this effect was evident only in boys. No other main effects or sex-by-group interactions were found for other white matter tracts.ConclusionsThese findings provide evidence of uncinate fasciculus white matter alterations in boys with anxiety disorders. The data demonstrate that anxiety disorder-related alterations in prefrontal-limbic structural connectivity are present early in life, are not related to psychotropic medication exposure, and are sex specific. Building on these findings, future research has the potential to provide insights into the genesis and sexual dimorphism of the pathophysiology that leads to anxiety disorders, as well as to identify sex-specific early-life treatment targets.

Pathological anxiety typically emerges during preadolescence and has been linked to alterations in white matter (WM) pathways. Because myelination is critical for efficient neuronal communication, characterizing associations between WM microstructure and symptoms may provide insights into pathophysiological mechanisms associated with childhood pathological anxiety. This longitudinal study examined 182 girls enrolled between the ages of 9–11 that were treatment-naïve at study entry: healthy controls (n = 49), subthreshold-anxiety disorders (AD) (n = 82), or meeting DSM-5 criteria for generalized, social, and/or separation ADs (n = 51), as determined through structured clinical interview. Anxiety severity was assessed with the Clinical Global Impression Scale and Screen for Child Anxiety and Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED). Participants (n = 182) underwent clinical, behavioral, and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) assessments at study entry, and those with pathological anxiety (subthreshold-AD and AD, n = 133) were followed longitudinally for up to 3 additional years. Cross-sectional ANCOVAs (182 scans) examining control, subthreshold-AD, and AD participants found no significant relations between anxiety and DTI measurements. However, in longitudinal analyses of girls with pathological anxiety (343 scans), linear mixed-effects models demonstrated that increases in anxiety symptoms (SCARED scores) were associated with reductions in whole-brain fractional anisotropy, independent of age (Std. β (95% CI) = −0.06 (−0.09 to −0.03), F(1, 46.24) = 11.90, P = 0.001). Using a longitudinal approach, this study identified a dynamic, within-participant relation between whole-brain WM microstructural integrity and anxiety in girls with pathological anxiety. Given the importance of WM microstructure in modulating neural communication, this finding suggests the possibility that WM development could be a viable target in the treatment of anxiety-related psychopathology.

White matter (WM) development early in life is a critical component of brain development that facilitates the coordinated function of neuronal pathways. Additionally, alterations in WM have been implicated in various neurodevelopmental disorders, including psychiatric disorders. Because of the need to understand WM development in the weeks immediately following birth, we characterized changes in WM microstructure throughout the postnatal macaque brain during the first year of life. This is a period in primates during which genetic, developmental, and environmental factors may have long-lasting impacts on WM microstructure. Studies in nonhuman primates (NHPs) are particularly valuable as a model for understanding human brain development because of their evolutionary relatedness to humans. Here, 34 rhesus monkeys (23 females, 11 males) were imaged longitudinally at 3, 7, 13, 25, and 53 weeks of age with T1-weighted (MPnRAGE) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). With linear mixed-effects (LME) modeling, we demonstrated robust logarithmic growth in FA, MD, and RD trajectories extracted from 18 WM tracts across the brain. Estimated rate of change curves for FA, MD, and RD exhibited an initial 10-week period of exceedingly rapid WM development, followed by a precipitous decline in growth rates. K-means clustering of raw DTI trajectories and rank ordering of LME model parameters revealed distinct posterior-to-anterior and medial-to-lateral gradients in WM maturation. Finally, we found that individual differences in WM microstructure assessed at 3 weeks of age were significantly related to those at 1 year of age. This study provides a quantitative characterization of very early WM growth in NHPs and lays the foundation for future work focused on the impact of alterations in early WM developmental trajectories in relation to human psychopathology.

The thalamus is a key sensorimotor relay area that is implicated in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, it is unknown how the thalamus and white-matter structures that contain thalamo-cortical fiber connections (e.g., the internal capsule) develop from childhood into adulthood and whether this microstructure relates to basic motor challenges in ASD. We used diffusion weighted imaging in a cohort-sequential design to assess longitudinal development of the thalamus, and posterior- and anterior-limbs of the internal capsule (PLIC and ALIC, respectively) in 89 males with ASD and 56 males with typical development (3-41 years; all verbal). Our results showed that the group with ASD exhibited different developmental trajectories of microstructure in all regions, demonstrating childhood group differences that appeared to approach and, in some cases, surpass the typically developing group in adolescence and adulthood. The PLIC (but not ALIC nor thalamus) mediated the relation between age and finger-tapping speed in both groups. Yet, the gap in finger-tapping speed appeared to widen at the same time that the between-group gap in the PLIC appeared to narrow. Overall, these results suggest that childhood group differences in microstructure of the thalamus and PLIC become less robust in adolescence and adulthood. Further, finger-tapping speed appears to be mediated by the PLIC in both groups, but group differences in motor speed that widen during adolescence and adulthood suggest that factors beyond the microstructure of the thalamus and internal capsule may contribute to atypical motor profiles in ASD. Autism Res 2018, 11: 450-462. © 2017 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay summary Microstructure of the thalamus, a key sensory and motor brain area, appears to develop differently in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Microstructure is important because it informs us of the density and organization of different brain tissues. During childhood, thalamic microstructure was distinct in the ASD group compared to the typically developing group. However, these group differences appeared to narrow with age, suggesting that the thalamus continues to dynamically change in ASD into adulthood.

Background Anxious temperament (AT) is an early-life heritable trait that predisposes individuals to develop anxiety and depressive disorders. Our previous work in preadolescent children suggests alterations in the uncinate fasciculus (UF), the white matter tract that connects prefrontal with limbic regions, in boys with anxiety disorders. Here, using a nonhuman primate model of AT, we tested whether this sexually dimorphic finding is evolutionarily conserved and examined the extent to which heritable and environmental influences contribute to UF microstructure. Methods Diffusion tensor images were collected in 581 young rhesus monkeys (1.89 ± 0.77 years old; 43.9% female). Using tract-based analyses, we assessed the relationship among AT, UF microstructure (as measured with fractional anisotropy), and sex. Heritability of tract microstructure was determined using oligogenic linkage analysis of this large multigenerational pedigree. Results We predicted and found a negative relation between AT and UF fractional anisotropy in male but not female monkeys (AT × sex; p = .032, 1-tailed). Additionally, heritability analyses revealed that variation in UF fractional anisotropy was largely due to nonheritable factors (h2 = 0.185, p = .077). Conclusions These results demonstrate a cross-species, male-specific relation between UF microstructure and anxiety and provide a potential substrate for anxiety-related prefrontal-limbic dysregulation. The heritability analyses point to the importance of environmental influences on UF microstructure, which could be important in mediating the nonheritable components of pathological anxiety. These findings have the potential to guide new treatment strategies for childhood anxiety disorders and further support the use of nonhuman primates as a translational model to discover mechanisms underlying the development of anxiety.

The complexity and heterogeneity of neuroimaging findings in individuals with autism spectrum disorder has suggested that many of the underlying alterations are subtle and involve many brain regions and networks. The ability to account for multivariate brain features and identify neuroimaging measures that can be used to characterize individual variation have thus become increasingly important for interpreting and understanding the neurobiological mechanisms of autism. In the present study, we utilize the Mahalanobis distance, a multidimensional counterpart of the Euclidean distance, as an informative index to characterize individual brain variation and deviation in autism. Longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging data from 149 participants (92 diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and 57 typically developing controls) between 3.1 and 36.83 years of age were acquired over a roughly 10-year period and used to construct the Mahalanobis distance from regional measures of white matter microstructure. Mahalanobis distances were significantly greater and more variable in the autistic individuals as compared to control participants, demonstrating increased atypicalities and variation in the group of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Distributions of multivariate measures were also found to provide greater discrimination and more sensitive delineation between autistic and typically developing individuals than conventional univariate measures, while also being significantly associated with observed traits of the autism group. These results help substantiate autism as a truly heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorder, while also suggesting that collectively considering neuroimaging measures from multiple brain regions provides improved insight into the diversity of brain measures in autism that is not observed when considering the same regions separately. Distinguishing multidimensional brain relationships may thus be informative for identifying neuroimaging-based phenotypes, as well as help elucidate underlying neural mechanisms of brain variation in autism spectrum disorders., Highlights • Mahalanobis distance proposed to characterize brain differences from a multivariate set of neuroimaging measures. • Brain variation in autism is examined using Mahalanobis distance is sensitive to underlying microstructure. • Comparison of Mahalanobis distance with traditional univariate measures is examined. • Utility of multivariate brain relations with Mahalanobis distance and prospect of future studies are described.

© 2016 American Psychological Association. Dispositional negativity-the propensity to experience and express more frequent, intense, or enduring negative affect-is a fundamental dimension of childhood temperament and adult personality. Elevated levels of dispositional negativity can have profound consequences for health, wealth, and happiness, drawing the attention of clinicians, researchers, and policymakers. Here, we highlight recent advances in our understanding of the psychological and neurobiological processes linking stable individual differences in dispositional negativity to momentary emotional states. Self-report data suggest that 3 key pathways-increased stressor reactivity, tonic increases in negative affect, and increased stressor exposure-explain most of the heightened negative affect that characterizes individuals with a more negative disposition. Of these 3 pathways, tonically elevated, indiscriminate negative affect appears to be most central to daily life and most relevant to the development of psychopathology. New behavioral and biological data provide insights into the neural systems underlying these 3 pathways and motivate the hypothesis that seemingly "tonic" increases in negative affect may actually reflect increased reactivity to stressors that are remote, uncertain, or diffuse. Research focused on humans, monkeys, and rodents suggests that this indiscriminate negative affect reflects trait-like variation in the activity and connectivity of several key brain regions, including the central extended amygdala and parts of the prefrontal cortex. Collectively, these observations provide an integrative psychobiological framework for understanding the dynamic cascade of processes that bind emotional traits to emotional states and, ultimately, to emotional disorders and other kinds of adverse outcomes.

Background Nonhuman primate models are critical for understanding mechanisms underlying human psychopathology. We established a nonhuman primate model of anxious temperament (AT) for studying the early-life risk to develop anxiety and depression. Studies have identified the central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce) as an essential component of AT's neural substrates. Corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) is expressed in the Ce, has a role in stress, and is linked to psychopathology. Here, in young rhesus monkeys, we combined viral vector technology with assessments of anxiety and multimodal neuroimaging to understand the consequences of chronically increased CRF in the Ce region. Methods Using real-time intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging-guided convection-enhanced delivery, five monkeys received bilateral dorsal amygdala Ce-region infusions of adeno-associated virus serotype 2 containing the CRF construct. Their cagemates served as unoperated control subjects. AT, regional brain metabolism, resting functional magnetic resonance imaging, and diffusion tensor imaging were assessed before and 2 months after viral infusions. Results Dorsal amygdala CRF overexpression significantly increased AT and metabolism within the dorsal amygdala. Additionally, we observed changes in metabolism in other AT-related regions, as well as in measures of functional and structural connectivity. Conclusions This study provides a translational roadmap that is important for understanding human psychopathology by combining molecular manipulations used in rodents with behavioral phenotyping and multimodal neuroimaging measures used in humans. The results indicate that chronic CRF overexpression in primates not only increases AT but also affects metabolism and connectivity within components of AT's neural circuitry.

White matter microstructure forms a complex and dynamical system that is critical for efficient and synchronized brain function. Neuroimaging findings in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suggest this condition is associated with altered white matter microstructure, which may lead to atypical macroscale brain connectivity. In this study, we used diffusion tensor imaging measures to examine the extent that white matter tracts are interrelated within ASD and typical development. We assessed the strength of inter-regional white matter correlations between typically developing and ASD diagnosed individuals. Using hierarchical clustering analysis, clustering patterns of the pairwise white matter correlations were constructed and revealed to be different between the two groups. Additionally, we explored the use of graph theory analysis to examine the characteristics of the patterns formed by inter-regional white matter correlations and compared these properties between ASD and typical development. We demonstrate that the ASD sample has significantly less coherence in white matter microstructure across the brain compared to that in the typical development sample. The ASD group also presented altered topological characteristics, which may implicate less efficient brain networking in ASD. These findings highlight the potential of graph theory based network characteristics to describe the underlying networks as measured by diffusion magnetic resonance imaging and furthermore indicates that ASD may be associated with altered brain network characteristics. Our findings are consistent with those of a growing number of studies and hypotheses that have suggested disrupted brain connectivity in ASD.

The lateral division of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTL) and central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce) form the two poles of the 'central extended amygdala', a theorized subcortical macrostructure important in threat-related processing. Our previous work in nonhuman primates, and humans, demonstrating strong resting fMRI connectivity between the Ce and BSTL regions, provides evidence for the integrated activity of these structures. To further understand the anatomical substrates that underlie this coordinated function, and to investigate the integrity of the central extended amygdala early in life, we examined the intrinsic connectivity between the Ce and BSTL in non-human primates using ex vivo neuronal tract tracing, and in vivo diffusion-weighted imaging and resting fMRI techniques. The tracing studies revealed that BSTL receives strong input from Ce; however, the reciprocal pathway is less robust, implying that the primate Ce is a major modulator of BSTL function. The sublenticular extended amygdala (SLEAc) is strongly and reciprocally connected to both Ce and BSTL, potentially allowing the SLEAc to modulate information flow between the two structures. Longitudinal early-life structural imaging in a separate cohort of monkeys revealed that extended amygdala white matter pathways are in place as early as 3weeks of age. Interestingly, resting functional connectivity between Ce and BSTL regions increases in coherence from 3 to 7weeks of age. Taken together, these findings demonstrate a time period during which information flow between Ce and BSTL undergoes postnatal developmental changes likely via direct Ce→BSTL and/or Ce↔SLEAc↔BSTL projections.

Mounting evidence suggests that poorer motor skills may be related to more severe autism symptoms. This study investigated if atypical white matter microstructure in the brain mediated the relationship between motor skills and ASD symptom severity. Sixty-seven males with ASD and 42 males with typical development (5-33 years old) completed a diffusion tensor imaging scan and measures of grip strength, finger tapping, and autism symptom severity. Within the ASD group, weaker grip strength predicted more severe autism symptoms. Fractional anisotropy of the brainstem's corticospinal tract predicted both grip strength and autism symptom severity and mediated the relationship between the two. These findings suggest that brainstem white matter may contribute to autism symptoms and grip strength in ASD.

Conscious awareness of negative cues is thought to enhance emotion-regulatory capacity, but the neural mechanisms underlying this effect are unknown. Using continuous flash suppression (CFS) in the MRI scanner, we manipulated visual awareness of fearful faces during an affect misattribution paradigm, in which preferences for neutral objects can be biased by the valence of a previously presented stimulus. The amygdala responded to fearful faces independently of awareness. However, when awareness of fearful faces was prevented, individuals with greater amygdala responses displayed a negative bias toward unrelated novel neutral faces. In contrast, during the aware condition, inverse coupling between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex reduced this bias, particularly among individuals with higher structural connectivity in the major white matter pathway connecting the prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Collectively, these results indicate that awareness promotes the function of a critical emotion-regulatory network targeting the amygdala, providing a mechanistic account for the role of awareness in emotion regulation.

White matter tracts of the brain allow neurons and neuronal networks to communicate and function with high efficiency. The aim of this review is to briefly introduce diffusion tensor imaging methods that examine white matter tracts and then to give an overview of the studies that have investigated white matter integrity in the brains of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). From the 48 studies we reviewed, persons with ASD tended to have decreased fractional anisotropy and increased mean diffusivity in white matter tracts spanning many regions of the brain but most consistently in regions such as the corpus callosum, cingulum, and aspects of the temporal lobe. This decrease in fractional anisotropy was often accompanied by increased radial diffusivity. Additionally, the review suggests possible atypical lateralization in some white matter tracts of the brain and a possible atypical developmental trajectory of white matter microstructure in persons with ASD. Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed.

The image contrast in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is highly sensitive to several mechanisms that are modulated by the properties of the tissue environment. The degree and type of contrast weighting may be viewed as image filters that accentuate specific tissue properties. Maps of quantitative measures of these mechanisms, akin to microstructural/environmental-specific tissue stains, may be generated to characterize the MRI and physiological properties of biological tissues. In this article, three quantitative MRI (qMRI) methods for characterizing white matter (WM) microstructural properties are reviewed. All of these measures measure complementary aspects of how water interacts with the tissue environment. Diffusion MRI, including diffusion tensor imaging, characterizes the diffusion of water in the tissues and is sensitive to the microstructural density, spacing, and orientational organization of tissue membranes, including myelin. Magnetization transfer imaging characterizes the amount and degree of magnetization exchange between free water and macromolecules like proteins found in the myelin bilayers. Relaxometry measures the MRI relaxation constants T1 and T2, which in WM have a component associated with the water trapped in the myelin bilayers. The conduction of signals between distant brain regions occurs primarily through myelinated WM tracts; thus, these methods are potential indicators of pathology and structural connectivity in the brain. This article provides an overview of the qMRI stain mechanisms, acquisition and analysis strategies, and applications for these qMRI stains.

When extreme, anxiety can become debilitating. Anxiety disorders, which often first emerge early in development, are common and challenging to treat, yet the neurocognitive mechanisms that confer increased risk have only recently started to come into focus. Here we review recent work highlighting the importance of neural circuits centered on the amygdala. We begin by describing dispositional negativity, a core dimension of childhood temperament and adult personality and an important risk factor for the development of anxiety disorders and other kinds of stress-sensitive psychopathology. Converging lines of epidemiological, neurophysiological, and mechanistic evidence indicate that the amygdala supports stable individual differences in dispositional negativity across the lifespan and contributes to the etiology of anxiety disorders in adults and youth. Hyper-vigilance and attentional biases to threat are prominent features of the anxious phenotype and there is growing evidence that they contribute to the development of psychopathology. Anatomical studies show that the amygdala is a hub, poised to govern attention to threat via projections to sensory cortex and ascending neuromodulator systems. Imaging and lesion studies demonstrate that the amygdala plays a key role in selecting and prioritizing the processing of threat-related cues. Collectively, these observations provide a neurobiologically-grounded framework for understanding the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders in adults and youth and set the stage for developing improved intervention strategies.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating disorder that has been associated with brain abnormalities, including white matter alterations. However, little is known about the effect of treatment on these brain alterations. To investigate the course of white matter alterations in PTSD, we used a longitudinal design investigating treatment effects on white matter integrity using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Diffusion tensor and magnetization transfer images were obtained pre- and posttreatment from veterans with (n=39) and without PTSD (n=22). After treatment, 16 PTSD patients were remitted, and 23 had persistent PTSD based on PTSD diagnosis. The dorsal and hippocampal cingulum bundle, stria terminalis, and fornix were investigated as regions of interest. Exploratory whole-brain analyses were also performed. Groups were compared with repeated-measures ANOVA for fractional anisotropy (FA), and magnetization transfer ratio. Persistently symptomatic PTSD patients had increasing FA of the dorsal cingulum over time, and at reassessment these FA values were higher than both combat controls and the remitted PTSD group. Group-by-time interactions for FA were found in the hippocampal cingulum, fornix, and stria terminalis, posterior corona radiata, and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Our results indicate that higher FA of the dorsal cingulum bundle may be an acquired feature of persistent PTSD that develops over time. Furthermore, treatment might have differential effects on the hippocampal cingulum, fornix, stria terminalis, posterior corona radiata, and superior longitudinal fasciculus in remitted vs persistent PTSD patients. This study contributes to a better understanding of the neural underpinnings of PTSD treatment outcome.

The central extended amygdala is an evolutionarily conserved set of interconnected brain regions that play an important role in threat processing to promote survival. Two core components of the central extended amygdala, the central nucleus of the amygdala (Ce) and the lateral bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BST) are highly similar regions that serve complimentary roles by integrating fear- and anxiety-relevant information. Survival depends on the ability of the central extended amygdala to rapidly integrate and respond to threats that vary in their immediacy, proximity, and characteristics. Future studies will benefit from understanding alterations in central extended amygdala function in relation to stress-related psychopathology.

Background The corpus callosum is the largest white matter structure in the brain, and it is the most consistently reported to be atypical in diffusion tensor imaging studies of autism spectrum disorder. In individuals with typical development, the corpus callosum is known to undergo a protracted development from childhood through young adulthood. However, no study has longitudinally examined the developmental trajectory of corpus callosum in autism past early childhood. Methods The present study used a cohort sequential design over 9 years to examine age-related changes of the corpus callosum in 100 males with autism and 56 age-matched males with typical development from early childhood (when autism can first be reliably diagnosed) to mid-adulthood (after development of the corpus callosum has been completed) (3 to 41 years of age). Results The group with autism demonstrated a different developmental trajectory of white matter microstructure in the anterior corpus callosum’s (genu and body) fractional anisotropy, which suggests atypical brain maturation in these regions in autism. When analyses were broken down by age group, atypical developmental trajectories were present only in the youngest participants (10 years of age and younger). Significant main effects for group were found in terms of decreased fractional anisotropy across all three subregions of the corpus callosum (genu, body, and splenium) and increased mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity in the posterior corpus callosum. Conclusions These longitudinal results suggest atypical early childhood development of the corpus callosum microstructure in autism that transitions into sustained group differences in adolescence and adulthood. This pattern of results provides longitudinal evidence consistent with a growing number of published studies and hypotheses regarding abnormal brain connectivity across the life span in autism. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13229-015-0001-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Atlases of key white matter (WM) structures in humans are widely available, and are very useful for region of interest (ROI)-based analyses of WM properties. There are histology-based atlases of cortical areas in the rhesus macaque, but none currently of specific WM structures. Since ROI-based analysis of WM pathways is also useful in studies using rhesus diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data, we have here created an atlas based on a publicly available DTI-based template of young rhesus macaques. The atlas was constructed to mimic the structure of an existing human atlas that is widely used, making results translatable between species. Parcellations were carefully hand-drawn on a principle-direction color-coded fractional anisotropy image of the population template. The resulting atlas can be used as a reference to which registration of individual rhesus data can be performed for the purpose of white-matter parcellation. Alternatively, specific ROIs from the atlas may be warped into individual space to be used in ROI-based group analyses. This atlas will be made publicly available so that it may be used as a resource for DTI studies of rhesus macaques.

The present study used an accelerated longitudinal design to examine group differences and age-related changes in processing speed in 81 individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) compared to 56 age-matched individuals with typical development (ages 6-39 years). Processing speed was assessed using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-3rd edition (WISC-III) and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-3rd edition (WAIS-III). Follow-up analyses examined processing speed subtest performance and relations between processing speed and white matter microstructure (as measured with diffusion tensor imaging [DTI] in a subset of these participants). After controlling for full scale IQ, the present results show that processing speed index standard scores were on average 12 points lower in the group with ASD compared to the group with typical development. There were, however, no significant group differences in standard score age-related changes within this age range. For subtest raw scores, the group with ASD demonstrated robustly slower processing speeds in the adult versions of the IQ test (i.e., WAIS-III) but not in the child versions (WISC-III), even though age-related changes were similar in both the ASD and typically developing groups. This pattern of results may reflect difficulties that become increasingly evident in ASD on more complex measures of processing speed. Finally, DTI measures of whole-brain white matter microstructure suggested that fractional anisotropy (but not mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, or axial diffusivity) made significant but small-sized contributions to processing speed standard scores across our entire sample. Taken together, the present findings suggest that robust decreases in processing speed may be present in ASD, more pronounced in adulthood, and partially attributable to white matter microstructural integrity.

Background: The efficacy and safety of intracerebral gene therapy for brain disorders like Parkinson's disease depends on the appropriate distribution of gene expression. Objectives: To assess whether the distribution of gene expression is affected by vector titer and protein type. Methods: Four adult macaque monkeys seronegative for adeno-associated virus 5 (AAV5) received a 30-µl inoculation of a high- or a low-titer suspension of AAV5 encoding glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) or green fluorescent protein (GFP) in the right and left ventral postcommissural putamen. The inoculations were conducted using convection-enhanced delivery and intraoperative MRI (IMRI). Results: IMRI confirmed targeting and infusion cloud irradiation from the catheter tip into the surrounding area. A postmortem analysis 6 weeks after surgery revealed GFP and GDNF expression ipsilateral to the injection site that had a titer-dependent distribution. GFP and GDNF expression was also observed in fibers in the substantia nigra (SN) pars reticulata (pr), demonstrating anterograde transport. Few GFP-positive neurons were present in the SN pars compacta (pc), possibly by direct retrograde transport of the vector. GDNF was present in many neurons of the SNpc and SNpr. Conclusions: After controlling for target and infusate volume, the intracerebral distribution of the gene product was affected by the vector titer and product biology.

Major white matter (WM) pathways in the brain can be reconstructed in vivo using tractography on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data. Performing tractography using the native DTI data is often considered to produce more faithful results than performing it using the spatially normalized DTI obtained using highly non-linear transformations. However, tractography in the normalized DTI is playing an increasingly important role in population analyses of the WM. In particular, the emerging tract specific analyses (TSA) can benefit from tractography in the normalized DTI for statistical parametric mapping in specific WM pathways. It is well known that the preservation of tensor orientations at the individual voxel level is enforced in tensor based registrations. However small reorientation errors at individual voxel level can accumulate and could potentially affect the tractography results adversely. To our knowledge, there has been no study investigating the effects of normalization on consistency of tractography that demands non-local preservation of tensor orientations which is not explicitly enforced in typical DTI spatial normalization routines. This study aims to evaluate and compare tract reconstructions obtained using normalized DTI against those obtained using native DTI. Although tractography results have been used to measure and influence the quality of spatial normalization, the presented study addresses a distinct question: whether non-linear spatial normalization preserves even long-range anatomical connections obtained using tractography for accurate reconstructions of pathways. Our results demonstrate that spatial normalization of DTI data does preserve tract reconstructions of major WM pathways and does not alter the variance (individual differences) of their macro and microstructural properties. This suggests one can extract quantitative and shape properties efficiently from the tractography data in the normalized DTI for performing population statistics on major WM pathways.

Background : Cortisol is critical for survival and reflects a primary mechanism by which emotions can influence immune responses throughout the periphery. Although cortisol release is adaptive in response to stress, chronically increased cortisol is known to have negative effects on both body and brain. Here we use a large sample of rhesus monkeys to examine individual differences in stress-related cortisol, in relation to white matter (WM) structure within a distributed brain network. We correlated individual differences in stress-induced cortisol with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures of WM microstructure in 330 young rhesus monkeys. Methods : 330 young rhesus macaques were scanned. Diffusion-weighted imaging was performed using a GE SIGNA 3T scanner. Scanning parameters were b=1000 s/mm2, TR = 10 s, TE = 77.2 ms, FOV = 14 cm, matrix = 128×128, 2.5 mm slices. Brains were transformed to a standard space using DTI-TK normalization tool (http://www.nitrc.org/projects/dtitk), which iteratively constructs a nonlinear template from the tensor files. Fractional anisotropy maps were computed in standard space. Cortisol was measured from the blood after a No Eye Contact (NEC) challenge, where a human intruder entered the room for 30 minutes without having eye contact with the monkey. We used robust regression to examine the relationship between fractional anisotropy (FA) and cortisol levels while controlling for age and sex. Results : Individual differences in cortisol were correlated with DTI-measured FA in the internal capsule (p

Context Emotion regulation deficits figure prominently in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and in other anxiety and mood disorders. Research examining emotion regulation and top-down modulation has implicated reduced coupling of the amygdala with prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, suggesting altered frontolimbic white matter connectivity in GAD. Objectives To investigate structural connectivity between ventral prefrontal cortex or anterior cingulate cortex areas and the amygdala in GAD and to assess associations with functional connectivity between those areas. Design Participants underwent diffusion-tensor imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Setting University magnetic resonance imaging facility. Participants Forty-nine patients with GAD and 39 healthy volunteer control subjects, including a matched subset of 21 patients having GAD without comorbid Axis I diagnoses and 21 healthy volunteers matched for age, sex, and education. Main Outcome Measures The mean fractional anisotropy values in the left and right uncinate fasciculus, as measured by tract-based analysis for diffusion-tensor imaging data. Results Lower mean fractional anisotropy values in the bilateral uncinate fasciculus indicated reduced frontolimbic structural connectivity in patients with GAD. This reduction in uncinate fasciculus integrity was most pronounced for patients without comorbidity and was not observed in other white matter tracts. Across all participants, higher fractional anisotropy values were associated with more negative functional coupling between the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala during the anticipation of aversion. Conclusions Reduced structural connectivity of a major frontolimbic pathway suggests a neural basis for emotion regulation deficits in GAD. The functional significance of these structural differences is underscored by decreased functional connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala in individuals with reduced structural integrity of the uncinate fasciculus.

The time course was investigated of the processing of “missing” verbs in gapping constructions, such as John ate the hamburger, and Bill __ the hotdog. Native speakers of Dutch silently read Dutch sentences with and without gapping while their EEG was recorded. A left anterior negativity (LAN) was found at the first possible position at which the gapped verb could be detected, at least, for in participants who performed poorly in an end-of-sentence acceptability judgment task. This suggests that some readers do not anticipate the gapped verb, but infer the gapped verb in a bottom-up fashion, resulting in a LAN. Second, a P600 effect was observed for gapping versus no-gapping conditions, the early part of which was unaffected by plausibility. This suggests that the semantic and syntactic integration of a gapped verb is a relatively late process, and involves mechanisms similar to integrating a wh-phrase object with its verb.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a powerful and noninvasive imaging method for characterizing tissue microstructure and white matter organization in the brain. While it has been applied extensively in research studies of the human brain, DTI studies of non-human primates have been performed only recently. The growing application of DTI in rhesus monkey studies would significantly benefit from a standardized framework to compare findings across different studies. A very common strategy for image analysis is to spatially normalize (co-register) the individual scans to a representative template space. This paper presents the development of a DTI brain template, UWRMAC-DTI271, for adolescent Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta) monkeys. The template was generated from 271 rhesus monkeys, collected as part of a unique brain imaging genetics study. It is the largest number of animals ever used to generate a computational brain template, which enables the generation of a template that has high image quality and accounts for variability in the species. The quality of the template is further ensured with the use of DTI-TK, a well-tested and high-performance DTI spatial normalization method in human studies. We demonstrated its efficacy in monkey studies for the first time by comparing it to other commonly used scalar-methods for DTI normalization. It is anticipated that this template will play an important role in facilitating cross-site voxelwise DTI analyses in Rhesus Macaques. Such analyses are crucial in investigating the role of white matter structure in brain function, development, and other psychopathological disorders for which there are well-validated non-human primate models.

The treatment of brain diseases is complicated by the presence of the blood-brain barrier. This barrier limits the crossing of therapeutic molecules from the blood vessels into the brain. Today, direct intracerebral infusion applying convection-enhanced delivery (CED) is proposed to circumvent this problem and enhance the area of distribution of infusate beyond the parameters of diffusion. Several factors affect the efficacy, predictability and replicability of CED, such as the catheter model, infusion rate and site of infusion. We set out to investigate if probabilistic tractography can be used to model the infusion flow and predict the intracerebral movement of molecules. In this study we describe a modeling and analysis framework based upon probabilistic tractography. This framework was used to compare probabilistic tractography modeling and actual CED infusion measurements in the putamen of non-human primates, as this gray matter structure is proposed as a target for CED treatment of Parkinson's disease.