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Background: This study aims to investigate whether the neurometabolites of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were distinct in patients with active and inactive juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) using the proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Methods: We measured the levels of total N-acetylaspartate (tNAA), choline (Cho), myo-inositol (ml), glutamate (Glu) and the complex of glutamate and glutamine (Glx) relative to total creatine (tCr) in ACC of each participant. Results: Compared with the healthy controls, a significant decrease of total Cho/tCr and Glx/tCr ratio in ACC occurred in active and inactive JIA group. The tCho/Cr level was negatively associated with the serum level of ESR in active JIA patients. There was no difference in NAA/tCr ratio among the three groups, which may imply that no neuron and axonal losses occurred in either active or inactive JIA patients. Conclusions: The abnormal neurometabolites in tCho/tCr and Glx/tCr in ACC may indicate that persistent dysfunction of glial cell, while neither neuron nor axonal losses occurred in active and inactive JIA patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Functional dyspepsia (FD) subtypes may differ in terms of pathophysiology, but the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood.Purpose: To explore spontaneous brain activity in two main FD subtypes, namely epigastric pain syndrome (EPS) and postprandial distress syndrome (PDS), using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF).Material and Methods: Thirty-one FD patients (18 EPS and 13 PDS) and 22 matched healthy controls (HC) underwent resting-state functional MRI scanning. Spontaneous brain activity was evaluated by measuring the ALFF and then compared among the EPS, PDS, and HC groups with ANOVA test. Pearson correlation analysis was performed between the ALFF values and clinical indices.Results: Compared to healthy controls, both EPS and PDS patients had increased ALFF in the bilateral precentral/postcentral gyri, insula, and thalami. Furthermore, only the EPS patients displayed increased ALFF in the right middle and inferior frontal gyri, and only the PDS patients showed increased ALFF in the left posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). The ALFF values in the left thalamus were positively correlated with the sleep disturbance in EPS patients, and the ALFF values in the right precentral/postcentral gyri showed a positive correlation with the symptom score in PDS patients.Conclusion: EPS and PDS had similarities of higher spontaneous brain activity in the primary motor/sensory areas and homeostatic-afferent network regions, and differences in the prefrontal region and PCC, providing evidence to suggest the similarity and diversity of pathophysiology in FD subtypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with disruption of the brain network topology; however, little is known about the topological changes and sex effects in PTSD patients following a unique trauma, the loss of an only child, in China.Methods: Fifty-one lost-only-child parents with PTSD, 93 lost-only-child non-PTSD parents (NPTSD), and 50 healthy subjects underwent resting-state functional MRI. The whole-brain functional network was constructed by thresholding partial correlation matrices of 90 brain regions. Group differences in the topological properties, the diagnosis-by-sex interaction, and the relationships between topological metrics and clinical variables were investigated.Results: Compared with healthy subjects, PTSD and NPTSD groups exhibited significantly shorter path lengths and higher nodal centralities in many brain regions across sexes; however, no significant difference was found between the PTSD and NPTSD groups. Additionally, the global topological metrics did not show any sex difference, whereas the nodal centralities in the left insula, right inferior frontal gyrus, and right posterior cingulate cortex differed significantly only in women, and the nodal centralities in the bilateral anterior cingulate cortices and left hippocampus were significantly different only in men. Furthermore, the nodal centralities of the right parahippocampus demonstrated significant diagnosis-by-sex interaction.Limitation: Cross-sectional design of this study could not demonstrate the causality.Conclusions: The parents who lost their only child exhibited a shift toward randomization and significant nodal topological alterations independent of PTSD effects. Additionally, sex differences were observed primarily in the topological properties at the nodal level, which may indicate a neurobiological contribution to the greater incidence of PTSD in females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]