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Whether remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD) and MDD present common or distinct neuropathological mechanisms remains unclear. We performed a meta-analysis of task-related whole-brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using anisotropic effect-size signed differential mapping software to compare brain activation between rMDD/MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs). We included 18 rMDD studies (458 patients and 476 HCs) and 120 MDD studies (3746 patients and 3863 HCs). The results showed that MDD and rMDD patients shared increased neural activation in the right temporal pole and right superior temporal gyrus. Several brain regions, including the right middle temporal gyrus, left inferior parietal, prefrontal cortex, left superior frontal gyrus and striatum, differed significantly between MDD and rMDD. Meta-regression analyses revealed that the percentage of females with MDD was positively associated with brain activity in the right lenticular nucleus/putamen. Our meta-analysis provides useful insights for understanding the potential neuropathology of brain dysfunction in MDD, developing more targeted and efficacious treatment and intervention strategies, and more importantly, providing potential neuroimaging targets for early screening of MDD.

Neuroimaging findings suggest that the amygdala plays a primary role in both the psychopathology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and poor sleep quality, which are common in trauma survivors. However, the neural mechanisms of these two problems in trauma survivors associated with amygdala remain unclear. In the current study, we aimed to explore the role of functional connectivity of amygdala subregions in both PTSD symptoms and poor sleep quality. A total of 94 trauma-exposed subjects were scanned on a 3T MR system using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Both Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale scores were negatively correlated with the resting-state functional connectivity between the left basolateral amygdala-left medial prefrontal cortex and the right basolateral amygdala-right medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings suggest a shared amygdala subregional neural circuitry underlying the neuropathological mechanisms of PTSD symptoms and poor sleep quality in trauma survivors.

Objective The identification of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among natural disaster survivors is remarkably challenging, and there are no reliable objective signatures that can be used to assist clinical diagnosis and optimize treatment. The current study aimed to establish a neurobiological signature of PTSD from the connectivity of large-scale brain networks and clarify the brain network mechanisms of PTSD. Methods We examined fifty-seven unmedicated survivors with chronic PTSD and 59 matched trauma-exposed healthy controls (TEHCs) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). We extracted the node-to-network connectivity and obtained a feature vector with a dimensionality of 864 (108 nodes × 8 networks) to represent each subject's functional connectivity (FC) profile. Multivariate pattern analysis with a relevance vector machine was then used to distinguish PTSD patients from TEHCs. Results We achieved a promising diagnostic accuracy of 89.2% in distinguishing PTSD patients from TEHCs. The most heavily weighted connections for PTSD classification were among the default mode network (DMN), visual network (VIS), somatomotor network, limbic network, and dorsal attention network (DAN). The strength of the anticorrelation of FC between the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC) in DMN and the VIS and DAN was associated with the severity of PTSD. Conclusions This study achieved relatively high accuracy in classifying PTSD patients vs. TEHCs at the individual level. This performance demonstrates that rs-fMRI-derived multivariate classification based on large-scale brain networks can provide potential signatures both to facilitate clinical diagnosis and to clarify the underlying brain network mechanisms of PTSD caused by natural disasters.

Individuals with both post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder (PTSD + MDD) often show greater social and occupational impairment and poorer treatment response than individuals with PTSD alone. Increasing evidence reveals that the amygdala, a brain region implicated in the pathophysiology of both of these conditions, is a complex of structurally and functionally heterogeneous nuclei. Quantifying the functional connectivity of two key amygdala subregions, the basolateral (BLA) and centromedial (CMA), in PTSD + MDD and PTSD-alone could advance our understanding of the neurocircuitry of these conditions. 18 patients with PTSD + MDD, 28 with PTSD-alone, and 50 trauma exposed healthy controls (TEHC), all from a cohort who survived the same large earthquake in China, underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Bilateral BLA and CMA functional connectivity (FC) maps were created using a seed-based approach for each participant. The analysis of covariance of FC was used to determine between-group differences. A significant interaction between amygdala subregion and diagnostic group suggested that differences in connectivity patterns between the two seeds were mediated by diagnosis. Post-hoc analyses revealed that PTSD + MDD patients showed weaker connectivity between right BLA and (a) left anterior cingulate cortex/supplementary motor area, and (b) bilateral putamen/pallidum, compared with PTSD-alone patients. Higher CMA connectivities left ACC/SMA were also observed in PTSD + MDD compared with PTSD-alone. An inverse relationship between the connectivity of right BLA with right putamen/pallidum and MDD symptoms was found in PTSD + MDD. These findings indicate a relationship between the neural pathophysiology of PTSD + MDD compared with PTSD-alone and TEHC and may inform future clinical interventions.

Safety issue is main obstacle for commercialization of high energy density lithium-ion battery. Thermal runaway is the most crucial problem in battery safety research. In order to solve safety problem, a lot of efforts have been made in the research of battery thermal runaway mechanism, thermal stability test, simulation and modeling. Herein, this article provides a review on chemical reaction of thermal runaway and the development of thermal simulation research on lithium battery. Thermal runaway are mainly divided into four types according to reaction mechanism, having different heat-generating behaviors. Researchers can reduce the cost and time of experiments through modelling of lithium-ion batteries, analyze the key factors of the thermal runaway during charge/discharge process, and improve the structural design and safety of the batteries. Finally, the review

Rationale and objectives The hippocampus, especially the CA1, CA3, and dentate gyrus (DG) subfields, is reported to be associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after trauma. However, neuroimaging studies of the associations between PTSD and hippocampal subfield volumes have failed to yield consistent findings. The aim of this study is to examine whether the dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) Taq1A polymorphism, which is associated with both hippocampal function and PTSD, moderated the association between PTSD severity and hippocampal CA1, CA3 and DG volumes. Methods T1-weighted images were acquired from 142 trauma survivors from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake using a 3.0-T magnetic resonance imaging system. Hippocampal subfield segmentations were performed with FreeSurfer v6.0. We used the simple moderation model from the PROCESS v3.4 tool for SPSS 23.0 to examine the association between the rs1800497 polymorphism, PTSD severity, and hippocampal CA3 and DG volumes. Results A significant genotype × PTSD symptom severity interaction was found for the left CA3 volume (ΔF = 5.01, p = 0.008, ΔR2 = 0.05). Post hoc, exploratory analyses deconstructing the interaction revealed that severe PTSD symptomatology were associated with reduced left CA3 volume among TC heterozygotes (t = − 2.86, p = 0.005). Conclusions This study suggests that DRD2 Taq1A polymorphism moderates the association between PTSD symptomatology and left CA3 volume, which promotes an etiological understanding of the hippocampal atrophy at the subfield level. This highlights the complex effect of environmental stress, and provides possible mechanism for the relationship between the dopaminergic system and hippocampal function in PTSD.

Bakgroud The hippocampus is involved in the pathophysiology of major depressive disorder (MDD), and its structure and function have been reported to be related to the antidepressant response. This study aimed to identify relationships between hippocampal functional connectivity (FC) and early improvement in patients with MDD and to further explore the ability of hippocampal FC to predict early efficacy. Methods Thirty-six patients with nonpsychotic MDD were recruited and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans at baseline. After two weeks of treatment with escitalopram, patients were divided into subgroups with early improved depression (EID, n= 19) and nonimproved depression (NID, n=17) . A voxelwise FC analysis was performed with the bilateral hippocampus as seeds, two-sample t-tests were used to compare hippocampal FC between groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were constructed to determine the best FC measures and optimal threshold for differentiating EID from END. Results The EID group showed significantly higher FC between the left hippocampus and left inferior frontal gyrus and precuneus than the END group. And the left hippocampal FC of these two regions were positively correlated with the reduction ratio of the depressive symptom scores. The ROC curve analysis revealed that summed FC scores for these two regions exhibited the highest area under the curve, with a sensitivity of 0.947 and specificity of 0.882 at a summed score of 0.14. Limitations The sample used in this study was relatively small. Conclusions These findings demonstrated that FC of the left hippocampus can predict early efficacy of antidepressant.

Additional file 1. Supplementary material containing 12 parts used to prove the results of this article.

Background: Neuroimaging findings suggest that social anxiety disorder (SAD) may be correlated with changes in regional- or network-level brain function. However, few studies have explored alterations in intrinsic resting cerebral function in patients with SAD at both the regional and network levels, particularly focusing on the theory of mind (ToM)-related regions. This study was performed to investigate changes in neural activity and functional connectivity (FC) in ToM-related regions during the resting state in SAD patients and to determine how these alterations are correlated with the clinical symptoms of SAD. Methods: Forty-three SAD patients and 43 matched healthy controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) scans. First, the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) approach was used to explore regional activity. Then, the ToM-related region, i.e., the left precuneus, which showed altered ALFF values, was adopted as a seed for further FC analyses to assess network-level alterations in SAD. Between-group differences were compared using voxel-based two-sample t-tests (P

Perceiving 3D structure in natural images is an immense computational challenge for the visual system. While many previous studies focused on the perception of rigid 3D objects, we applied a novel method on a common set of non-rigid objects-static images of the human body in the natural world. We investigated to what extent human ability to interpret 3D poses in natural images depends on the typicality of the underlying 3D pose and the informativeness of the viewpoint. Using a novel 2AFC pose matching task, we measured how well subjects were able to match a target natural pose image with one of two comparison, synthetic body images from a different viewpoint-one was rendered with the same 3D pose parameters as the target while the other was a distractor rendered with added noises on joint angles. We found that performance for typical poses was measurably better than atypical poses; however, we found no significant difference between informative and less informative viewpoints. Further comparisons of 2D and 3D pose matching models on the same task showed that 3D body knowledge is particularly important when interpreting images of atypical poses. These results suggested that human ability to interpret 3D poses depends on pose typicality but not viewpoint informativeness, and that humans probably use prior knowledge of 3D pose structures.

Background An overlap of clinical symptoms between major depressive disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) suggests that the two disorders exhibit similar brain mechanisms. However, few studies have directly compared the brain structures of the two disorders. The aim of this study was to assess the gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness alterations between non-comorbid medication-naive MDD patients and SAD patients. Methods High-resolution T1-weighted images were acquired from 37 non-comorbid MDD patients, 24 non-comorbid SAD patients and 41 healthy controls (HCs). Voxel-based morphometry analysis of the GMV (corrected with a false discovery rate of p, Highlights • MDD and SAD share common gray matter abnormalities in the orbitofrontal-striatal-thalamic circuit, salience and dorsal attention network. • MDD patients show disorder-specific involvement of the visual processing regions. • SAD patients show disorder-specific involvement of the precentral cortex. An overlap of clinical symptoms between major depressive disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) suggests similar brain mechanisms for the two disorders. However, few studies have directly compared the brain structures of the two disorders. The aim of this study was to assess gray matter volume and cortical thickness alterations between non-comorbid medication-naive MDD patients and SAD patients. We found that MDD and SAD shared a common pattern of gray matter abnormalities in the orbitofrontal-striatal-thalamic circuit, salience network and dorsal attention network. MDD patients showed disorder-specific involvement of the visual processing regions. SAD patients showed disorder-specific involvement of the precentral cortex.

Some intrinsic connectivity networks including the default mode network (DMN) and executive control network (ECN) may underlie social anxiety disorder (SAD). Although the cerebellum has been implicated in the pathophysiology of SAD and several networks relevant to higher-order cognition, it remains unknown whether cerebellar areas involved in DMN and ECN exhibit altered resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) with cortical networks in SAD. Forty-six patients with SAD and 64 healthy controls (HC) were included and submitted to the baseline resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Seventeen SAD patients who completed post-treatment clinical assessments were included after group cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). RsFC of three cerebellar subregions in both groups was assessed respectively in a voxel-wise way, and these rsFC maps were compared by two-sample t tests between groups. Whole-brain voxel-wise regression was performed to examine whether cerebellar connectivity networks can predict response to CBT. Lower rsFC circuits of cerebellar subregions compared with HC at baseline (p

Little is known about the objective sleep characteristics of patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The present study examines the association between PTSD symptom severity and objective daytime sleep characteristics measured using the Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT) in therapy-naïve patients with earthquake-related PTSD. A total of 23 PTSD patients and 13 trauma-exposed non-PTSD (TEN-PTSD) subjects completed one-night in-lab polysomnography (PSG) followed by a standard MSLT. 8 of the 23 PTSD patients received paroxetine treatment. Compared to the TEN-PTSD subjects, no significant nighttime sleep disturbances were detected by PSG in the subjects with PTSD; however, a shorter mean MSLT value was found in the subjects with PTSD. After adjustment for age, sex, and body mass index, PTSD symptoms, particularly hyperarousal, were found to be independently associated with a shorter MSLT value. Further, the mean MSLT value increased significantly after therapy in PTSD subjects. A shorter MSLT value may be a reliable index of the medical severity of PTSD, while an improvement in MSLT values might also be a reliable marker for evaluating therapeutic efficacy in PTSD patients.

Neuroimaging findings suggest that the amygdala plays a primary role in both the psychopathology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and poor sleep quality, which are common in trauma survivors. However, the neural mechanisms of these two problems in trauma survivors associated with amygdala remain unclear. In the current study, we aimed to explore the role of functional connectivity of amygdala subregions in both PTSD symptoms and poor sleep quality. A total of 94 trauma-exposed subjects were scanned on a 3T MR system using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Both Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale scores were negatively correlated with the resting-state functional connectivity between the left basolateral amygdala-left medial prefrontal cortex and the right basolateral amygdala-right medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings suggest a shared amygdala subregional neural circuitry underlying the neuropathological mechanisms of PTSD symptoms and poor sleep quality in trauma survivors.

Currently, malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are widely used for malaria diagnosis, but test performance and the factors that lead to failure of Plasmodium ovale detection are not well understood. In this study, three pLDH-based RDTs were evaluated using cases in China that originated in Africa. The sensitivity of Wondfo Pf/Pan, CareStart pLDH PAN and SD BIOLINE Pf/Pan in P. ovale detection was 70, 55 and 18%, respectively. CareStart was worse at detecting P. o. curtisi (36.5%) than at detecting P. o. wallikeri (75.0%), and SD could not detect P. o. curtisi. The overall detection ratio of all three RDTs decreased with parasite density and pLDH concentration. Wondfo, CareStart and SD detected only 75.0, 78.1 and 46.9% of the P. ovale cases, respectively, even when the parasitemia were higher than 5000 parasites/μL. Subspecies of P. ovale should be considered while to improve RDT quality for P. ovale diagnosis to achieve the goal of malaria elimination., Author summary Plasmodium ovale (P. ovale) are under-estimated and overshadowed by other malaria parasites in tropical countries, which can cause chronic infections that last from months to years. The chronic infection caused by P. ovale should be of concern in the context of the long-term goal of eliminating malaria. Rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) is one of the WHO recommended tools to confirm the infection of plasmodium parasites, which can distinguish Plasmodium falciparum and non-falciparum species as well. However, little is known about their performance detecting P. ovale, and the factors that affect the efficiency of RDTs in the detection of P. ovale have not been systemically investigated. This study suggested that the performance of the three pLDH-based RDTs for P. ovale detection was not optimal, the low parasite density and pLDH concentration contributed to the failure of the RDT test for P. ovale. It provided information for the application of malaria RDTs in the field and for research and development to improve RDTs for malaria diagnosis.

Suboptimal levels of serum vitamin D levels have been implied to be associated with cardiovascular diseases and endothelial dysfunction, conditions closely associated with erectile dysfunction (ED). The present systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the vitamin D levels in subjects with ED compared to controls and the 5-item version of the international index of erectile function (IIEF-5) score in subjects with vitamin D deficiency compared to those without vitamin D deficiency in order to elucidate the role of vitamin D in the pathogenesis of ED. Studies evaluating the possible association between vitamin D levels and ED were initially screened and thus included following electronic literature search of database Cochrane Library, PUBMED, EMBASE and MEDLINE. Essential article information including outcome measures was extracted from the qualified studies by two independent authors, and STATA 12.0 software was used conducted the meta-analysis. Subgroup analyses were conducted by vitamin D detection methods and sample size. The standard mean difference (SMD) as well as the 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) was applied to estimate the outcome measures. A total of seven articles were included in our meta-analysis with a total of 4,132 subjects. Pooled estimate was in favour of increased vitamin D levels in subjects without ED with a SMD of 3.027 ng/ml, 95%CI 2.290-3.314, p = 0.000. However, subgroup analysis showed an opposite trend, after one study with a sample size over 1,000 that could possibly influence the weight balance was excluded, with a SMD of 0.267, 95%CI -0.052 to 0.585, p = 0.101. We also identified about 0.320 higher in IIEF-5 score (95%CI = 0.146-0.494, p = 0.000) in subjects without vitamin D deficiency versus with vitamin D deficiency. Nevertheless, subgroup analysis based on vitamin D detection methods obtained differential results (radioimmunoassay subgroup, SMD(95%CI) = 0.573 (0.275-0.870), p = 0.000; immunoassay subgroup, SMD(95%CI) = 0.189 (-0.025 to 0.404), p = 0.084). In conclusion, results from the present meta-analysis did not provide a strong relationship between vitamin D and the risk of ED. However, the results should be interpreted with caution and more high quality studies are warranted.

Background Although no more traumatic stimuli exists, a variety of symptoms are persisting in chronic Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) patients. It is therefore necessary to explore the spontaneous brain activity of treatment-naive PTSD patients during resting-state. Method Seventeen treatment-naive PTSD patients and twenty traumatized controls were recruited and underwent a resting functional magnetic resonance imaging (Rs-fMRI) scan. The differences of regional brain spontaneous activity between the participants with and without PTSD were measured by Amplitude of Low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF). The relationship between the altered brain measurements and the symptoms of PTSD were analyzed. Result Compared to traumatized controls, the PTSD group showed significantly altered ALFF in many emotion-related brain regions, such as the medial anterior cingulate cortex (MACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), insular (IC), middle temporal gyrus (MTG), and ventral posterior cingulate cortex (VPCC). Interestingly this is the first report of a hyperactive visual cortex (V1/V2) during resting-state in treatment-naive PTSD patients. There were significant positive correlations between ALFF values in the bilateral visual cortex and re-experiencing or avoidance in PTSD. Negative correlation was observed between ALFF values in MACC and avoidance. Conclusion This study suggested that the visual cortex and the MACC may be involved in the characteristic symptoms of chronic PTSD, such as re-experiencing and avoidance. Future studies that focus on these areas of the brain are required, as alteration of these areas may act as a biomarker and could be targeted in future treatments for PTSD.

We aimed to investigate the recovery neuromechanism underlying the treatment efficacy in generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD). We recruited fifteen patients with GSAD and nineteen healthy control (HC) participants, all of whom underwent a baseline resting-state fMRI scan. The GSAD patients underwent an additional fMRI scan after group cognitive behavior therapy (GCBT). Amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and degree centrality (DC) measures were used to examine altered regional and integrated spontaneous brain activity in group comparisons. After GCBT, ALFF of the right precuneus decreased. At baseline, the GSAD group showed higher ALFF in the left precuneus and the left middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and lower ALFF in the lingual gyrus compared with the HC group. The DC of the left precuneus and the MTG were attenuated and the right putamen increased in the post-treatment group. The changes in DC in the precuneus were positively correlated with changes in clinical symptom. The abnormal ALFF of the precuneus, MTG and lingual gyrus may be the neural underpinning of GSAD, whereas the neural response to symptom remission after GCBT was achieved by a rebalance within the default mode network.

Recent studies involving connectome analysis including graph theory have yielded potential biomarkers for mental disorders. In this study, we aimed to investigate the differences of resting-state network between patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) and healthy controls (HCs), as well as to distinguish between individual subjects using topological properties. In total, 42 SAD patients and the same number of HCs underwent resting functional MRI, and the topological organization of the whole-brain functional network was calculated using graph theory. Compared with the controls, the patients showed a decrease in 49 positive connections. In the topological analysis, the patients showed an increase in the area under the curve (AUC) of the global shortest path length of the network (Lp) and a decrease in the AUC of the global clustering coefficient of the network (Cp). Furthermore, the AUCs of Lp and Cp were used to effectively discriminate the individual SAD patients from the HCs with high accuracy. This study revealed that the neural networks of the SAD patients showed changes in topological characteristics, and these changes were prominent not only in both groups but also at the individual level. This study provides a new perspective for the identification of patients with SAD.

Background Amygdala is considered as the core pathogenesis of generalized social anxiety disorder (GSAD). However, it is still unclear whether effective group cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) could modulate the function of amygdala-related network. We aimed to examine the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the amygdala before and after group CBT. Methods Fifteen patients with GSAD were scanned on a 3T MR system before and after 8 weeks of group CBT. For comparison, nineteen healthy control participants also underwent baseline fMRI scanning. We used bilateral amygdala as seed regions and the rsFC maps of the right and left amygdala were created separately in a voxel-wise way. Clusters survived two-tailed Gaussian Random Field (GRF) correction at p 2.3). Results Compared with baseline, patients with CBT showed significantly decreased connectivity of the left amygdala with the right putamen, the left dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC). Especially, the changes of the connectivity between the left amygdala and the dACC positively correlated with changes of the anxiety symptom in patients. Furthermore, in relative to controls, patients showed higher connectivity of left amygdala with dmPFC and dACC at baseline, while normal after CBT. Conclusions Short-term group CBT could down-regulate the abnormal higher connectivity of prefrontal-amygdala network, along with clinical improvement. This may provide a potential biomarker to monitor the treatment effect of CBT in GSAD patients.

Previous studies have suggested that asthma patients are more susceptible to anxiety or depression and have more specifically elevated depressive symptomology. These psychological factors are associated with anatomical brain changes. However, little is known about alterations in spontaneous brain activity in asthma patients with depressive symptoms. Here we hypothesized that asthma patients exhibit an altered regional spontaneous brain activity, which may contribute to their increased susceptibility to depression and poor perception of asthma symptoms. The purpose of this study was to examine spontaneous brain activity in female asthma patients using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI).Eleven asthmatics without depressive symptoms (ASs), 14 asthmatics with depressive symptoms (ADs), and 15 age- and education-matched healthy controls (HCs) completed rs-fMRI. The regional homogeneity (ReHo) value was calculated based on rs-fMRI to assess local signal synchrony strength and compared among the groups. Correlation analyses were conducted between both ReHo values and clinical parameters.Compared with HCs, ASs showed a significantly increased ReHo in the right insula; whereas ADs showed a significantly decreased ReHo in the right insula, which positively correlated with nocturnal symptom score in the Asthma Control Test (r = 0.562, P = 0.036). No significant correlation was observed between the total ACT scores and right insula activities (r = 0.263, P = 0.364).Decreased ReHo in the right insula may play an important role in depressive symptoms and abnormal asthma symptom perception.