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Abstract: Background and Aims: In‐utero exposure to opioids including buprenorphine (BUP) has been shown to affect fetal activity, specifically heart‐rate variability (FHRV) and fetal movement (FM). Our objective was to extract simultaneous recordings of fetal cardiac and brain‐related activity in BUP‐maintained and non‐opioid exposed pregnant women using a novel non‐invasive biomagnetic technique. Design: A pilot study was conducted, recording and analyzing biomagnetic data from fetuses of BUP‐maintained and non‐opioid exposed pregnant women. Signals were acquired with the non‐invasive 151‐channel SARA (SQUID‐Array for Reproductive Assessment) system. Advanced signal‐processing techniques were applied to extract fetal heart and brain activity. Setting: University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA). Participants: Eight BUP‐maintained pregnant women from UAMS Women's Mental Health Program between gestational ages (GA) of 29–37 weeks who were treated with 8–24 mg of BUP daily. Sixteen pregnant women with no known opioid exposure in the same GA range were also included. Measurements: Outcome measures from the fetal heart and brain signals included: heart rate (FHR), FM, FHR accelerations, FHR–FM coupling, FHRV, fetal behavioral states (FBS) and power spectral density (PSD) of spontaneous brain activity. These measures were analyzed at three GA intervals. Findings: Fetal heart and brain activity parameters were extracted and quantified successfully from 18 non‐opioid and 16 BUP recordings. Overall analysis in both groups show that: FHR and FM ranged from 131 to 141 beats per minute (b.p.m.) and 5 to 11 counts, respectively. In the 35–37 weeks GA, the coupling duration (~9 s) was the shortest, while three of the FHRV parameters were the highest. The PSD of brain activity revealed highest power in 0.5‐4 Hz bandwidth. Transitions in FBS from quiet to active sleep were > 50% of sessions. Conclusions: This pilot study showed that a novel biomagnetic technique allows simultaneous quantification of cardiac and brain activities of a group of buprenorphine‐exposed and non‐exposed fetuses in the third trimester. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety disorders affect approximately 1 in 5 (18%) Americans within a given 1 year period, placing a substantial burden on the national health care system. Therefore, there is a critical need to understand the neural mechanisms mediating anxiety symptoms. We used unbiased, multimodal, data-driven, whole-brain measures of neural activity (magnetoencephalography) and connectivity (fMRI) to identify the regions of the brain that contribute most prominently to sustained anxiety. We report that a single brain region, the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), shows both elevated neural activity and global brain connectivity during threat. The IPS plays a key role in attention orienting, and may contribute to the hypervigilance that is a common symptom of pathological anxiety. Hyperactivation of this region during elevated state anxiety may account for the paradoxical facilitation of performance on tasks that require an external focus of attention, and impairment of performance on tasks that require an internal focus of attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is common in the United States, accounting for as many as 75-80% of all TBIs. It is recognized as a significant public health concern, but there are ongoing controversies regarding the etiology of persistent symptoms post-mTBI. This constellation of nonspecific symptoms is referred to as postconcussive syndrome (PCS). The present study combined results from magnetoencephalography (MEG) and cognitive assessment to examine group differences and relationships between brain activity and cognitive performance in 31 military and civilian individuals with a history of mTBI+PCS and 33 matched healthy control subjects. An operator-free analysis was used for MEG data to increase reliability of the technique. Subjects completed a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment, and measures of abnormal slow-wave activity from MEG were collected. Results demonstrated significant group differences on measures of executive functioning and processing speed. In addition, significant correlations between slow-wave activity on MEG and patterns of cognitive functioning were found in cortical areas, consistent with cognitive impairments on exams. Results provide more objective evidence that there may be subtle changes to the neurobiological integrity of the brain that can be detected by MEG. Further, these findings suggest that these abnormalities are associated with cognitive outcomes and may account, at least in part, for long-term PCS in those who have sustained an mTBI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The NIMH Healthy Research Volunteer Dataset is a collection of phenotypic data characterizing healthy research volunteers using clinical assessments such as assays of blood and urine, mental health assessments, diagnostic and dimensional measures of mental health, cognitive and neuropsychological functioning, structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), along with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and a comprehensive magnetoencephalography battery (MEG). In addition, blood samples of healthy volunteers are banked for future analyses. All data collected in this protocol are broadly shared in the OpenNeuro repository, in the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) format. In addition, task paradigms and basic pre-processing scripts are shared on GitHub. There are currently few open access MEG datasets, and multimodal neuroimaging datasets are even more rare. Due to its depth of characterization of a healthy population in terms of brain health, this dataset may contribute to a wide array of secondary investigations of non-clinical and clinical research questions., (© 2022. This is a U.S. Government work and not under copyright protection in the US; foreign copyright protection may apply.)

Importance: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and resilience reflect 2 distinct outcomes after exposure to potentially traumatic events. The neural mechanisms underlying these different outcomes are not well understood. Objective: To examine the effect of trauma on synchronous neural interactions for veterans with PTSD and resilient controls using magnetoencephalography. Design: Participants underwent diagnostic interviews, a measure of exposure to potentially traumatic events, and magnetoencephalography. Setting: US Department of Veterans Affairs medical center. Participants: Eighty-six veterans with PTSD and 113 resilient control veterans recruited from a large Midwestern medical center. Main Outcome Measures: Multiple regression analyses were performed to examine the effect of lifetime trauma on global and local synchronous neural interactions. In analyses examining the local synchronous neural interactions, the partial regression coefficient indicates the strength and direction of the effect of trauma on the synchronous interactions between the 2 neural signals recorded by a pair of sensors. The partial regression coefficient, or slope, is the primary outcome measure for these analyses. Results: Global synchronous neural interactions were significantly modulated downward with increasing lifetime trauma scores in resilient control veterans (P = .003) but not in veterans with PTSD (P = .91). This effect, which was primarily characterized by negative slopes (ie, decor-relations) in small neural networks, was strongest in the right superior temporal gyms. Significant negative slopes were more common, stronger, and observed between sensors at shorter distances than positive slopes in both hemispheres (P< .001 for all) for controls but not for veterans with PTSD. Conclusions: Neural modulation involving decorrelation of neural networks in the right superior temporal gyrus and, to a lesser extent, other areas distinguishes resilient veterans from those with PTSD and is postulated to have an important role in healthy response to trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To identify the predictors of postsurgical seizure freedom in children with refractory epilepsy and normal or nonfocal MRI findings. Methods: We analyzed 22 children with normal or subtle and nonfocal MRI findings, who underwent surgery for intractable epilepsy following extraoperative intracranial EEG. We compared clinical profiles, neurophysiological data (scalp EEG, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and intracranial EEG), completeness of surgical resection and pathology to postoperative seizure outcomes. Results: Seventeen children (77%) had a good postsurgical outcome (defined as Engel class IIIA or better), which included eight (36%) seizure-free children. All children with postsurgical seizure freedom had an MEG cluster in the final resection area. Postsurgical seizure freedom was obtained in none of the children who had bilateral MEG dipole clusters (3) or only scattered dipoles (1). All five children in whom ictal onset zones were confined to ≤5 adjacent intracranial electrodes achieved seizure freedom compared to three of 17 children with ictal onset zones that extended over >5 electrodes (p = 0.002). None of six children with more than one type of seizure became seizure-free, compared to eight of 16 children with a single seizure type (p = 0.04). Complete resection of the preoperatively localized epileptogenic zone resulted in seizure remission in 63% (5/8) and incomplete resections, in 21% (3/14) (p = 0.06). Age of onset, duration of epilepsy, number of lobes involved in resection, and pathology failed to correlate with seizure freedom. Conclusions: Surgery for intractable epilepsy in children with normal MRI findings provided good postsurgical outcomes in the majority of our patients. As well, restricted ictal onset zone predicted postoperative seizure freedom. Postoperative seizure freedom was less likely to occur in children with bilateral MEG dipole clusters or only scattered dipoles, multiple seizure types and incomplete resection of the proposed epileptogenic zone. Seizure freedom was most likely to occur when there was concordance between EEG and MEG localization and least likely to occur when these results were divergent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Posttraumatic growth (PTG), or positive psychological changes following exposure to traumatic events, is commonly reported among trauma survivors. In the present study, we examined neural correlates of PTG in 106 veterans with PTSD and 193 veteran controls using task-free magnetoencephalography (MEG), diagnostic interviews and measures of PTG, and traumatic event exposure. Global synchronous neural interactions (SNIs) were significantly modulated downward with increasing PTG scores in controls (p = .005), but not in veterans with PTSD (p = .601). This effect was primarily characterized by negative slopes in local neural networks, was strongest in the medial prefrontal cortex, and was much stronger and more extensive in the control than the PTSD group. The present study complements previous research highlighting the role of neural adaptation in healthy functioning.

Background: Synchronous neural oscillatory activity in the gamma range (30-80 Hz) has been shown to be abnormal in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and their first-degree relatives in response to simple auditory stimuli. Gamma-band abnormalities in ASD probands have been seen in response to language stimuli, but this has not been investigated in first-degree relatives. This is of particular interest given that language impairments are a core symptom of ASD and may be part of the broad autism phenotype (BAP) seen in relatives., Methods: Magnetoencephalography recordings during a continuous word recognition task were obtained for 23 parents of a child with ASD (pASD) and 28 adult control participants. Total and evoked gamma-band activity, as well as inter-trial phase-locking factor (PLF), were measured in response to the task. Beta-band activity was also measured, due to its suggested role in language processing. Participants completed a series of language measures to assess the relationship between brain activity and language function, and lateralization of task-related activity was assessed., Results: The pASD group showed increased evoked gamma and beta activity, while controls had decreased evoked activity. Additionally, while both groups showed a reduction in total gamma power (commonly seen in language tasks), this reduction was more prominent in the control group. The pASD group demonstrated significantly worse performance on a measure of phonology compared to controls. Significant but distinct relationships were found between gamma/beta activity and language measures within the two groups. In addition, while the overall task generally elicited left lateralized responses, pASD showed greater left lateralization than controls in some regions of interest., Conclusions: Abnormalities in oscillatory responses to language were seen in pASD that are consistent with previous findings in ASD probands. Gamma-band responses to language stimuli have not previously been assessed in first-degree relatives of ASD probands and these findings are supportive of gamma-band activity as a heritable, neurophysiological biomarker of ASD. The possible relationship seen between language function and neural activity in the current study should be investigated further to assess if oscillatory response abnormalities may contribute to behavioural manifestations of the BAP.

Background:   Attention biases toward threat are often detected in individuals with anxiety disorders. Threat biases can be measured experimentally through dot-probe paradigms, in which individuals detect a probe following a stimulus pair including a threat. On these tasks, individuals with anxiety tend to detect probes that occur in a location previously occupied by a threat (i.e., congruent) faster than when opposite threats (i.e., incongruent). In pediatric anxiety disorders, dot-probe paradigms detect abnormal attention biases toward threat and abnormal ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) function. However, it remains unclear if this aberrant vlPFC activation occurs while subjects process threats (e.g., angry faces) or, alternatively, while they process and respond to probes. This magnetoencephalography (MEG) study was designed to answer this question., Methods:   Adolescents with either generalized anxiety disorder (GAD, n = 17) or no psychiatric diagnosis (n = 25) performed a dot-probe task involving angry and neutral faces while MEG data were collected. Synthetic Aperture Magnetometry (SAM) beamformer technique was used to determine whether there were group differences in power ratios while subjects processed threats (i.e., angry vs. neutral faces) or when subjects responded to incongruent versus. congruent probes., Results:   Group differences in vlPFC activation during the response period emerged with a 1-30 Hz frequency band. No group differences in vlPFC activation were detected in response to angry-face cues., Conclusions:   In the dot-probe task, anxiety-related perturbations in vlPFC activation reflect abnormal attention control when responding to behaviorally relevant probes, but not to angry faces. Given that motor responses to these probes are used to calculate threat bias, this study provides insight into the pathophysiology reflected in this commonly used marker of anxiety. In addition, this finding may inform the development of novel anxiety-disorder treatments targeting the vlPFC to enhance attention control to task-relevant demands., (© 2011 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry © 2011 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) sensor measurements are often contaminated by several interferences such as background activity from outside the regions of interest, by biological and non-biological artifacts, and by sensor noise. Here, we introduce a probabilistic graphical model and inference algorithm based on variational-Bayes expectation-maximization for estimation of activity of interest through interference suppression. The algorithm exploits the fact that electromagnetic recording data can often be partitioned into baseline periods, when only interferences are present, and active time periods, when activity of interest is present in addition to interferences. This algorithm is found to be robust and efficient and significantly superior to many other existing approaches on real and simulated data., (2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd)