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BackgroundAbnormalities in cortical thickness and subcortical structures have been studied in schizophrenia but little is known about corresponding changes in mania and brain structural differences between these two psychiatric conditions, especially early in the stage of the illness. In this study we aimed to compare cortical thickness and shape of the amygdala–hippocampal complex in first-episode schizophrenia (FES) and mania (FEM).MethodStructural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed on 28 FES patients, 28 FEM patients and 28 healthy control subjects who were matched for age, gender and handedness.ResultsOverall, the shape of the amygdala was deformed in both patient groups, relative to controls. Compared to FEM patients, FES patients had significant inward shape deformation in the left hippocampal tail, right hippocampal body and a small region in the right amygdala. Cortical thinning was more widespread in FES patients, with significant differences found in the temporal brain regions when compared with FEM and controls.ConclusionsSignificant differences were observed between the two groups of patients with FES and FEM in terms of the hippocampal shape and cortical thickness in the temporal region, highlighting that distinguishable brain structural changes are present early in the course of schizophrenia and mania. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The developing brain grows exponentially in the first few years of life. There is a need to have age-appropriate brain atlases that coherently characterize the geometry of the cerebral cortex, white matter tracts, and functional organization. This study employed multi-modal brain images of an Asian cohort and constructed brain structural and functional atlases for 6-month-old infants, 4.5-, 6-, and 7.5-year-old children. We exploited large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping and probabilistic atlas generation approaches to integrate structural MRI and diffusion weighted images (DWIs) and to create the atlas where white matter tracts well fit into the cortical folding pattern. Based on this structural atlas, we then employed spectral clustering to parcellate the brain into functional networks from resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI). Our results provided the atlas that characterizes the cortical folding geometry, subcortical regions, deep white matter tracts, as well as functional networks in a stereotaxic coordinate space for the four different age groups. The functional networks consisting of the primary cortex were well established in infancy and remained stable to childhood, while specific higher-order functional networks showed specific patterns of hemispherical, subcortical-cerebellar, and cortical-cortical integration and segregation from infancy to childhood. Our multi-modal fusion analysis demonstrated the use of the integrated structural and functional atlas for understanding coherent patterns of brain anatomical and functional development during childhood. Hence, our atlases can be potentially used to study coherent patterns of brain anatomical and functional development., (Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Background: Prenatal maternal depression may have long-term impacts on amygdala-cortical development. This study explored associations of prenatal maternal depressive symptoms on the amygdala-cortical structural covariance of the offspring from birth to early childhood, derived from a longitudinal birth cohort., Methods: Structural magnetic resonance imaging was performed to obtain the amygdala volume and cortical thickness at each time point. Prenatal maternal depressive symptoms were measured using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale at 26 weeks of pregnancy. Regression analysis was used to examine the effects of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale on a structural coupling between the amygdala volume and cortical thickness at birth (n = 167) and 4.5 years of age (n = 199)., Results: Girls whose mothers had high prenatal maternal depressive symptoms showed a positive coupling between the amygdala volume and insula thickness at birth (β = .617, p = .001) but showed a negative coupling between the amygdala volume and inferior frontal thickness at 4.5 years of age (β = -.369, p = .008). No findings were revealed in boys at any time point., Conclusions: The development of the amygdala-prefrontal circuitry is vulnerable to environmental factors related to depression. Such a vulnerability might be sex dependent., (Copyright © 2019. Published by Elsevier Inc.)