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Background: Concern about falling is common in older people. Various related psychological constructs as well as poor balance and slow gait have been associated with decreased gray matter (GM) volume in old age. The current study investigates the association between concern about falling and voxel-wise GM volumes.Methods: A total of 281 community-dwelling older people aged 70-90 years underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. Concern about falling was assessed using Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I). For each participant, voxel-wise GM volumes were generated with voxel-based morphometry and regressed on raw FES-I scores (p < .05 family-wise error corrected on cluster level).Results: FES-I scores were negatively correlated with total brain volume (r = -.212; p ≤ .001), GM volume (r = -.210; p ≤ .001), and white matter volume (r = -.155; p ≤ .001). Voxel-based morphometry analysis revealed significant negative associations between FES-I and GM volumes of (i) left cerebellum and bilateral inferior occipital gyrus (voxels-in-cluster = 2,981; p < .001) and (ii) bilateral superior frontal gyrus and left supplementary motor area (voxels-in-cluster = 1,900; p = .004). Additional adjustment for vision and physical fall risk did not alter these associations. After adjustment for anxiety, only left cerebellum and bilateral inferior occipital gyrus remained negatively associated with FES-I scores (voxels-in-cluster = 2,426; p < .001). Adjustment for neuroticism removed all associations between FES-I and GM volumes.Conclusions: Our study findings show that concern about falling is negatively associated with brain volumes in areas important for emotional control and for motor control, executive functions and visual processing in a large sample of older men and women. Regression analyses suggest that these relationships were primarily accounted for by psychological factors (generalized anxiety and neuroticism) and not by physical fall risk or vision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background : Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) sustained in early childhood affects the brain at a peak developmental period and may disrupt sensitive stages of skill acquisition, thereby compromising child functioning. However, due to the challenges of collecting non-sedated neuroimaging data in young children, the consequences of mTBI on young children's brains have not been systematically studied. In typically developing preschool children (of age 3–5years), a brief behavioral-play familiarization provides an effective alternative to sedation for acquiring awake magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a time- and resource-efficient manner. To date, no study has applied such an approach for acquiring non-sedated MRI in preschool children with mTBI who may present with additional MRI acquisition challenges such as agitation or anxiety. Objective: The present study aimed to compare the effectiveness of a brief behavioral-play familiarization for acquiring non-sedated MRI for research purposes between young children with and without mTBI, and to identify factors associated with successful MRI acquisition. Materials and methods: Preschool children with mTBI (n=13) and typically developing children (n=24) underwent a 15-minutes behavioral-play MRI familiarization followed by a 35-minutes non-sedated MRI protocol. Success rate was compared between groups, MRI quality was assessed quantitatively, and factors predicting success were documented. Results: Among the 37 participants, 15 typically developing children (63%) and 10 mTBI (77%) reached the MRI acquisition success criteria (i.e., completing the two first sequences). The success rate was not significantly different between groups (p=.48; 95% CI [-0.36 14.08]; Cramer's V=.15). The images acquired were of high-quality in 100% (for both groups) of the structural images, and 60% (for both groups) of the diffusion images. Factors associated with success included older child age (Β=0.73, p=.007, exp(B)=3.11, 95% CI [1.36 7.08]) and fewer parental concerns (Β=-1.56, p=.02, exp(Β)=0.21, 95% CI [0.05 0.82]) about the MRI procedure. Conclusion: Using brief behavioral-play familiarization allows acquisition of high-quality non-sedated MRI in young children with mTBI with success rates comparable to those of non-injured peers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]