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Objective: Insomnia is prevalent among dialysis patients and affects their mortality. Although cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTi) is recommended, attending regular face-to-face CBTi sessions is a major challenge for patients. We evaluated the effectiveness of a self-directed computerized CBTi (cCBTi) in dialysis patients, and investigated changes in resting-state brain connectivity and inflammatory cytokines following cCBTi., Method: Thirty-five patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis who had insomnia were screened for participation in the study, with 17 participants included in the final analyses. A self-directed cCBTi protocol accessed via tablet computer during dialysis or at home was developed and applied. Information about sleep, anxiety, depression, laboratory data, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data was obtained 3-5 days before and after cCBTi., Results: cCBTi improved sleep quality, and this was correlated with increased resting-state brain connectivity between the default-mode network and the premotor/dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The decrement of interleukin-1β levels were correlated with improved sleep quality and increased brain connectivity after cCBTi., Conclusion: Our pilot study findings suggest that cCBTi is effective for dialysis patients with insomnia, and the therapeutic effects of cCBTi are related to changes in brain functional connectivity and inflammatory cytokines., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

How the brain supports normal episodic memory function without medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures has not been well characterized, which could provide clues for new therapeutic targets for people with MTL dysfunction-related memory impairment. To characterize brain network supporting effective episodic memory function in the absence of unilateral MTL, we investigated the whole-brain cortical interactions during functional magnetic resonance imaging memory encoding paradigms of words and figures in patients who showed a normal range of memory capacity following unilateral MTL resection and healthy controls (HC). Compared to the HC, the patients showed less activation in the left inferior frontal areas and right thalamus together with greater activation in the many cortical areas including the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Task-based functional connectivity (FC) analysis revealed that the mPFC showed stronger interactions with widespread brain areas in both patient groups, including the hippocampus contralateral to the resection. Moreover, the strength of the mPFC FC predicts the individual memory capacity of the patients. Our data suggest that hyperconnectivity of distributed brain areas, especially the mPFC, is a neural mechanism for memory function in the absence of one MTL., (© 2019 The Authors. Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

This study investigated whether resting-state functional connectivity is associated with long-term clinical outcomes of patients with schizophrenia. Resting-state brain images were obtained from 79 outpatients with schizophrenia and 30 healthy controls (HC), using a 3 T-MRI scanner. All patients were 20-50 years old with >3 years' duration of illness and appeared clinically stable. We assessed their psychopathology using the 18-item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS-18) and divided them into "good," "moderate," and "poor" outcome (SZ-GO, SZ-MO, and SZ-PO) groups depending on BPRS-18 total score. We obtained individual functional connectivity maps between a seed region of the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and all other brain regions and compared the functional connectivity of the default mode network (DMN) among the HC and 3 schizophrenia outcome groups, with a voxel-wise threshold of P < .001 within a cluster-extent threshold of 114 voxels. Additionally, we assessed correlations between functional connectivity and BPRS-18 scores. The SZ-MO and SZ-PO groups showed decreased functional connectivity between PCC and right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), left middle cingulate cortex, and left frontopolar cortex (FPC) compared to the SZ-GO and HC groups. DMN connectivity in the right vmPFC and left FPC negatively correlated with subscale scores of the BPRS-18, except the negative symptoms subscale. In this study, poorer clinical outcomes in patients with schizophrenia were associated with decreased DMN connectivity. In particular, the decreased functional connectivity might be related to the severity of positive and mood symptoms rather than negative symptoms., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Aim: Attention deficit has been reported in both schizophrenia patients and patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The aim of this study was to elucidate the deficits in sustained attention and associated neural network dysfunctions in schizophrenia patients and MDD patients, and to investigate the difference between the two patient groups., Methods: Twelve schizophrenia patients, 12 patients with non-psychotic MDD, and 12 healthy control subjects participated in this study. A sustained attention to response task (SART) was used to measure attention capacity. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) during attention tasks was measured using H(2) (15) O positron emission tomography. Statistical parametric mapping and analysis of covariance were performed to compare the behavioral performance and CBF changes during SART among three groups., Results: Behavioral performances were not significantly different among the three groups except for an increased commission error rate in the schizophrenia group. Regional CBF during SART was significantly reduced in the left inferior frontal gyrus, the left cuneus, and the right superior parietal lobule and increased in the right superior frontal gyrus and the right cuneus in the schizophrenia group compared to the healthy control group. In the MDD group, neither significant regional CBF difference nor behavioral deficit was found compared to the healthy control group., Conclusion: Behavioral performance deficit and perfusion changes in the prefrontal and parietal cortices during SART were observed only in the schizophrenia group. Prefrontal and parietal network dysfunction for sustained attention may be involved in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia., (© 2012 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences © 2012 Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.)

Objective: Delirium is a common and potentially life-threatening clinical syndrome. The authors investigated resting-state functional connectivity in patients with delirium to elucidate possible neural mechanisms underlying this disorder., Method: Twenty-two patients underwent initial functional MRI at rest during an episode of delirium. Of these patients, 14 completed follow-up scans after the episode resolved. Twenty-two comparison subjects without delirium also underwent scanning. The authors assessed cortical functional connectivity using the seed region of the posterior cingulate cortex and functional connectivity strengths between a priori subcortical regions related to acetylcholine and dopamine on data from 20 initial and 13 follow-up scans., Results: Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity and posterior cingulate cortex activity were inversely correlated in comparison subjects but strongly correlated in patients during an episode of delirium as indicated by increased functional connectivity between the two regions. Although precuneus activity was positively correlated with posterior cingulate cortex activity in comparison subjects, the correlation was further increased in patients during an episode of delirium, and the increment was associated with less severity and shorter duration of delirium. Functional connectivity strengths of the intralaminar thalamic and caudate nuclei with other subcortical regions were reduced during an episode of delirium but recovered after resolution of the episode., Conclusions: These findings suggest that the disruption in reciprocity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with the posterior cingulate cortex and reversible reduction of functional connectivity of subcortical regions may underlie the pathophysiology of delirium. In addition, enhanced integration in the posteromedial cortices may account for facilitating the rapid improvement of delirium.