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Several approaches have emerged to measure the cortical thickness (CT), which can be broadly divided into surface-based and voxel-based algorithms. We aimed to compare parcel-based CT estimation of the widely used FreeSurfer (FS) software and CAT12 software, which is a widely used voxel-based approach, and evaluate the test-retest (TRT) reliability of both methods. MRI images of 417 healthy individuals were analyzed. TRT reliability was performed on 60 participants. The mean CT of the parcels of the Desikan-Killiany atlas were calculated both in FS and CAT12. Linear mixed model was performed to compare the two methods and the TRT reliability, and paired-sample t-test for post-hoc analyses. Linear regression analyses were utilized to examine the regressions between the two methods and between different sessions with each method. CT values calculated using the two methods were significantly correlated (R

Motor sequence learning (MSL) paradigms are often used to investigate the neural processes underlying the acquisition of complex motor skills. Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have indicated an early stage in which spatial learning is prominent and a late stage of automatized performance after multiple training periods. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies yielded both decreased and increased activations of the sensorimotor and association areas. However, task-negative and task-positive intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs), the default mode (DMN) and dorsal attention (DAN) networks involved in governing attention demands during various task conditions were not specifically addressed in most studies. In the present fMRI study, a visually guided MSL (VMSL) task was used for bringing roles of visuospatial and motor attention into foreground in order to investigate the role of attention-related ICNs in MSL. Seventeen healthy, righthanded participants completed training and test sessions of VMSL during fMRI on the 1st day. Then, after daily training for three consecutive days outside the scanner, they were re-tested during the 5th day-s scanning session. When test session after early learning period was compared with training session, activation decrease was observed in the occipito-temporal fusiform cortex, while task-related suppression of DMN was reduced. Reduced deactivation after early learning was correlated with decreased error rates. After late learning stage we observed activation decreases in bilateral superior parietal lobules of task-positive DAN, dorsal precunei, and cerebellum. Reduced activity in left posterior parietal and right cerebellar regions were correlated with gains in speed, error rate, respectively. This dissociation in activity changes of DMN and DAN related areas suggests that DAN shows high contribution during both early and late MSL stages, possibly due to attention requirement for automatization of spatial and temporal aspects of motor sequence. In contrast, spatial learning occurring during early MSL stage was sufficient for releasing DMN resources. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. İstanbul Üniversitesi

Ulaş Ay acknowledges the support of Turkish Council of Higher Education for 100/2000 CoHE doctoral scholarship. We would like to acknowledge funding support from the TUBITAK grant #115S219 and the Istanbul University Research Projects Unit project #1567/42362. We would also like to Dilek Betul Arslan, Zeynep Tufekcioglu, Basar Bilgic, and Hasmet Hanagasi for their contributions to data collection. Some of the data in this paper were previously presented at the annual meeting of the Turkish Neurological Society in Antalya, Turkey, in Nov 2019, and we won first prize for an oral presentation. Therefore, we are also immensely grateful to the Turkish Neurological Society. During the caudo-rostral progression of Lewy pathology, the amygdala is involved relatively early in Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, lesser is known about the volumetric differences at the amygdala subdivisions, although the evidence mainly implicates the olfactory amygdala. We aimed to investigate the volumetric differences between the amygdala’s nuclear and sectoral subdivisions in the PD cognitive impairment continuum compared to healthy controls (HC). The volumes of nine nuclei of the amygdala were estimated with FreeSurfer (nuclear parcellation-NP) from T1-weighted images of PD patients with normal cognition (PD-CN), PD with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI), PD with dementia (PD-D), and HC. The appropriate nuclei were then merged to obtain three sectors of the amygdala (sectoral parcellation-SP). The nuclear and sectoral volumes were compared among the four groups and between the hyposmic and normosmic PD patients. There was a significant difference in the total amygdala volume among the four groups. In terms of nuclei, the bilateral cortico-amygdaloid transition area (CAT) and sectors superficial cortex-like region (sCLR) volumes of PD-MCI and PD-D were less than those of the PD-CN and HC. A linear discriminant analysis revealed that left CAT and left sCLR volumes classified the PD-CN and cognitively impaired PD (PD-CI: PD-MCI plus PD-D) with 90.7% accuracy according to NP and 85.2% accuracy to SP. Similarly, left CAT and sCLR volumes correctly identified the hyposmic and normosmic PD with 64.8% and 61.1% accuracies. Notably, the left olfactory amygdala volume successfully discriminated cognitive impairment in PD and could be used as neuroimaging-based support for PD-CI diagnosis. Publisher's Version Q3 WOS:000870621700001

AD is the highly severe part of the dementia spectrum and impairs cognitive abilities of individuals, bringing economic, societal and psychological burdens beyond the diseased. A promising approach in AD research is the analysis of structural and functional brain connectomes, i.e., sNETs and fNETs, respectively. We propose to use tensor representation (B-tensor) of uni-modal and multi-modal brain connectomes to define a low-dimensional space via tensor factorization. We show on a cohort of 47 subjects, spanning the spectrum of dementia, that diagnosis with an accuracy of 77% to 100% is achievable in a 5D connectome space using different structural and functional connectome constructions in a uni-modal and multi-modal fashion. We further show that multi-modal tensor factorization improves the results suggesting complementary information in structure and function. A neurological assessment of the connectivity patterns identified largely agrees with prior knowledge, yet also suggests new associations that may play a role in the disease progress., Turkish Directorate of Strategy and Budget TAM Project; Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK)-ARDEB 1003 Programme; Bogazici University Research Fund Grant

This study was funded by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) 1001 Grant #115S219 and Istanbul University Scientific Research Projects Unit project #1567/42362. Objective: To investigate metabolic changes of mild cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s disease (PD-MCI) using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (1H-MRSI). Methods: Sixteen healthy controls (HC), 26 cognitively normal Parkinson’s disease (PD-CN) patients, and 34 PD-MCI patients were scanned in this prospective study. Neuropsychological tests were performed, and three-dimensional 1H-MRSI was obtained at 3 T. Metabolic parameters and neuropsychological test scores were compared between PD-MCI, PD-CN, and HC. The correlations between neuropsychological test scores and metabolic intensities were also assessed. Supervised machine learning algorithms were applied to classify HC, PD-CN, and PD-MCI groups based on metabolite levels. Results: PD-MCI had a lower corrected total N-acetylaspartate over total creatine ratio (tNAA/tCr) in the right precentral gyrus, corresponding to the sensorimotor network (p = 0.01), and a lower tNAA over myoinositol ratio (tNAA/mI) at a part of the default mode network, corresponding to the retrosplenial cortex (p = 0.04) than PD-CN. The HC and PD-MCI patients were classified with an accuracy of 86.4% (sensitivity = 72.7% and specificity = 81.8%) using bagged trees. Conclusion: 1H-MRSI revealed metabolic changes in the default mode, ventral attention/salience, and sensorimotor networks of PD-MCI patients, which could be summarized mainly as ‘posterior cortical metabolic changes’ related with cognitive dysfunction. Turkiye Bilimsel ve Teknolojik Arastirma Kurumu (TUBITAK) Istanbul University Publisher's Version Q3 WOS:000828927500002 PubMed ID: 35867235

The pathophysiology of switch-of lateralization and bilateral temporal asynchrony, which are scalp EEG ictal propagation patterns (iPP) in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), is poorly understood. We aimed to analyse functional connectivity (FC) of the temporal lobe and related areas in patients with TLE with iPP (iPP-TLE) and without iPP (non-iPP TLE). Twelve patients with iPP-TLE, 13 patients with non-iPP TLE, and 13 healthy controls (HC) underwent resting-state functional MRI (fMRI). Seed-based FC was analysed between the homologous insulae, hippocampi, amygdalae, parahippocampal, superior temporal, and middle temporal gyri. FC was reduced between homologous temporal lobe areas in patients with TLE compared with HCs. Patients with non-iPP TLE displayed decreased FC between the homologous parahippocampal and superior temporal gyri, and patients with iPP-TLE had lower FC between the homologous insulae, parahippocampal and superior temporal gyri compared with HC. Furthermore, patients with iPP-TLE tended to have lower FC between the bilateral insulae when compared with patients with non-iPP TLE. Reduced FC of interhemispheric connections between temporal lobes and related areas might be an adaptive change to protect contralateral areas in seizure propagation. The insula showed decreased FC between two hemispheres in patients with iPP-TLE, assuming a role in ictal scalp propagation pattern changes in TLE.

Aim Sports activities provide social interaction for humans. Commitment to a given team is a salient feature of being a sports fan and becomes a prominent part of self-identification for fanatics. Emotion, subjective hedonic experience, and non-romantic love are related to fan behaviors. Few studies have evaluated the neural basis of sports fanaticism. Methods Thirty men, including 16 football fanatics and 14 non-fanatics, with a mean age of 27.4 ± 6.4 years (range, 20-48 years) were enrolled. Subjects underwent functional MRI while watching a set of goals scored by favorite, rival, and neutral teams. Results The analysis of variance in a general linear model revealed a significant Group × Condition interaction effect in the bilateral dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) that was more prominent in the left hemisphere. In the post-hoc comparisons, fanatics showed increased activation in bilateral dACC, supplementary motor area, superior frontal cortex, right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and right insula for Favorite > Neutral contrast and an increased activation in bilateral dACC and supplementary motor area for Rival > Neutral contrast. Seed-based connectivity analyses using the areas with significant activation differences revealed increased connectivity between dACC and several regions, including the left posterior lateral temporal area, insula, bilateral medial temporal area, and medial superior frontal area as well as the basal ganglia in fanatics compared to non-fanatics. Conclusion Our results suggest that football fanatics exhibit a different brain activation and connectivity pattern from non-fanatics, both under favorable and unfavorable conditions. This brain activity and connectivity pattern under emotionally laden conditions may represent higher responses to rewards, higher emotional valence attribution, and stronger motivational state of football fanatics, which might underlie their unusual behavioral responses.

PubMed: ID34619619 Mild cognitive impairment of Parkinson's disease (PD) may be an early manifestation that may progressively worsen to dementia. Cognitive decline has been associated with changes in the brain perfusion pattern. This study aimed to evaluate cerebral blood flow (CBF) deficits specific to different stages of cognitive decline. Seventeen patients with cognitively normal PD (PD-CN), 18 patients with PD with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI), and 16 patients with PD with dementia (PDD) were included in this study. The participants were scanned using a 3 T Philips MRI scanner. Arterial spin labelling magnetic resonance (ASL-MR) images were acquired, followed by calculation of the CBF maps, and registration onto the MNI152 brain atlas. A whole-brain voxel-based CBF comparison was performed among the patient groups using age as a covariate. The mean age of patients with PDD was significantly higher than that of patients with PD-MCI (P = 0.015) and PD-CN (P = 0.001). The CBF values of the three groups were significantly different in the left cuneus of the visual network (VN), left inferior frontal gyrus of the frontoparietal network (FPN), and left dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus. PDD had lower perfusion values than PD-MCI group in the same regions detected in the main group analysis. Additionally, comparison of PDD with PD-CN and non-demented groups revealed that the perfusion reduction extended into the bilateral cuneus of the VN, bilateral thalami, and left inferior frontal gyrus of the FPN. PDD could be separated from PD-MCI and PD-CN stages with CBF deficits in non-dopaminergically mediated posterior and dopaminergically mediated frontal networks. Publisher's Version

Intrinsic connectivity networks (ICN) are defined by the temporal correlations observed in low-frequency (0.01-0.1 Hz) oscillations of the blood oxygenation level (BOLD) signal between brain regions. These spatial connectivity maps overlap with areas of the brain known to be associated with various sensory, motor and cognitive functions. However, the brain is a complex dynamic system and phase synchronization may provide more illuminating measurements. In this study, we examined how the within-network phase consistency (WNPC) of ICNs changes according to frequencies and how these networks differ from each other in terms of within-network synchronization. The resting fMRI data of 96 participants (53 women) from the Human Connectome Project (HCP) were used. An average phase difference value of the network is calculated for the BOLD signal of each parcel. When ICNs are compared in terms of phase synchronization, it is observed that they are roughly divided into three main groups: sensory (visual, somatomotor), attention (dorsal attention, ventral attention) and higher cognitive (default mode, control and limbic). High-level cognitive networks have significantly lower within-network phase consistency compared to sensory and attention networks. Cluster-mass permutation test was used to see whether the differences between ICNs had frequency selectivity, and the frequency ranges with differentiation were determined. Different phase synchronization patterns of ICNs can provide new information about the intrinsic mechanisms of networks.

The aim of this study is to identify robust resting state-functional connectivity (rs-FC) alterations and their correlations with the neuropsychological characteristics of Ultra-High Risk (UHR) for psychosis subjects compared to healthy controls (HCs). Twenty individuals with UHR and sixteen HCs underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and a cognitive battery evaluating attention, episodic memory and executive functions. Compared to HCs, UHR individuals showed working memory and set-shifting impairments. In functional connectivity (FC) analyses, the Default Mode Network (DMN) of the UHR subjects displayed increased FC with the visual areas and decreased FC with the Dorsal Attention Network (DAN). Additionally, the salience network (SN) of the UHR subjects displayed increased connectivity with wide posterior cortical areas in the temporal, parietal and occipital lobes, corresponding to posterior nodes of the SN itself, the Somato-Motor Network (SMN) and the DAN. The SN connectivity with the left SMN and DAN was positively correlated with the Trail Making Test - B scores of the UHR subjects. These findings show that the SN and DMN, which mostly show abnormal connectivity patterns in psychosis, are also affected in UHR subjects, while the SN plays a more central role with its hyperconnectivity to the DAN and SMN. WOS:000754753700003 35093807 Q3

Background: There is evidence that alterations in functional connectivity (FC) of the striatocortical circuits may appear before the onset of clinical symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate FC of the striatocortical circuitry in asymptomatic carriers of heterozygous glucocerebrosidase (GBA) mutations, which pose a significant risk for developing PD. Methods: Twenty-one parents of confirmed Gaucher disease patients who were carrying heterozygous GBA mutations and 18 healthy individuals matched for age and gender were included. GBA mutation analysis was performed in all participants. Clinical evaluation included neurological examination, Mini Mental State Examination, and UPDRS Part III. Structural and functional MRI data of 18 asymptomatic GBA mutation carriers (asGBAmc) and 17 healthy controls (HC) were available. FC was analyzed with seed-based approach. Results: Eleven asymptomatic mutation carriers had heterozygous p.L483P mutation, 6 subjects heterozygous p.N409S mutation and 1 subject heterozygous p.R392G mutation in GBA gene. Mini-Mental State Examination mean score was 28.77 (±1.16) and 29.64 (±0.70) in asGBAmc and HC groups, respectively (p = 0.012). Significant increased connectivity Conclusion: Our results suggest that alterations in striatocortical FC can be detected in asymptomatic heterozygous GBA mutation carriers who are at risk of developing PD. These findings may provide insight into network changes during the asymptomatic phase of PD.

In this study, it is determined individual-based features which are used to estimate emotional negative valence and compared the features effectiveness with different classifiers. Ten movie clips are shown to subjects as an emotional stimuli and EEG recording is recorded synchronously. Emotional valence value is scored in [–7 7] Likert scale by the subjects immediately after video ended. According to lowest and highest valence values, two classes are generated. The data is processed on an individual basis and personal spatial filters is obtained by Independent Component Analysis. After calculating the spectrogram of the spatial filtered data, features are extracted by subtracting amplitudes of 3Hz averaged frequency bands. The result of feature selection, it is observed that features from beta and gamma bands are much more effective. The success rate of the selected features was tested with five classifiers by cross validation, and high performance was obtained from multilayer perceptron classifiers and the instance- based k-nearest neighborhood algorithm (IBk-NN). The average accuracies of IBk-NN and multilayer classifier are achieved 86% ±8 and 83% ±9, respectively.

In recent years, quantitative variables derived from the electroencephalogram (EEG) attract an increasing interest for the evaluation of neurodegenerative diseases, as EEG registers the neuro-electric activity with a high temporal resolution and provides a cost-effective and easily accessible, non-invasive method. Event-related oscillations (EROs) as oscillatory responses in the EEG to specific events further provide the possibility to track the cognitive decline in a task-specific manner. Current study in search for potential ERO biomarkers to distinguish different stages of cognitive decline along the Alzheimer's Disease (AD) continuum re-analyzed a combined set of data collected and analyzed in previous studies by Basar and coworkers. Target responses of a visual oddball experiment recorded from 33 AD patients, 46 Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) patients and 48 age, gender, and education matched normal elderly controls were analyzed for both evoked (phase-locked) and total (phase-locked + non-phase-locked) ERO powers in delta, theta, alpha, beta and gamma bands by applying continuous wavelet transform (WT) on averaged and single trial data, respectively. The cluster-based non-parametric permutation test implemented in the FieldTrip toolbox revealed significant differences among the three groups. While the total delta and theta responses already significantly declined in the MCI stage with further spatial expansion of the decline in AD, the evoked delta response reached a statistically significant reduction level in the AD stage. We obtained no significant difference among groups for alpha, beta and gamma frequency bands. These results suggest that total delta and theta EROs to oddball targets may be useful for early detection of the disease in MCI stage, while the evoked delta response allows detecting the conversion to AD. Istanbul University

Parkinson's disease (PD) with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) is currently diagnosed based on an arbitrarily predefined standard deviation of neuropsychological test scores, and more objective biomarkers for PD-MCI diagnosis are needed. The purpose of this study was to define possible brain perfusion-based biomarkers of not only mild cognitive impairment, but also risky gene carriers in PD using arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL-MRI). Fifteen healthy controls (HC), 26 cognitively normal PD (PD-CN), and 27 PD-MCI subjects participated in this study. ASL-MRI data were acquired by signal targeting with alternating radio-frequency labeling with Look-Locker sequence at 3 T. Single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping for rs9468 [microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) H1/H1 versus H1/H2 haplotype] was performed using a Stratagene Mx3005p real-time polymerase chain-reaction system (Agilent Technologies, USA). There were 15 subjects with MAPT H1/H1 and 11 subjects with MAPT H1/H2 within PD-MCI, and 33 subjects with MAPT H1/H1 and 19 subjects with MAPT H1/H2 within all PD. Voxel-wise differences of cerebral blood flow (CBF) values between HC, PD-CN and PD-MCI were assessed by one-way analysis of variance followed by pairwise post hoc comparisons. Further, the subgroup of PD patients carrying the risky MAPT H1/H1 haplotype was compared with noncarriers (MAPT H1/H2 haplotype) in terms of CBF by a two-sample t test. A pattern that could be summarized as "posterior hypoperfusion" (PH) differentiated the PD-MCI group from the HC group with an accuracy of 92.6% (sensitivity = 93%, specificity = 93%). Additionally, the PD patients with MAPT H1/H1 haplotype had decreased perfusion than the ones with H1/H2 haplotype at the posterior areas of the visual network (VN), default mode network (DMN), and dorsal attention network (DAN). The PH-type pattern in ASL-MRI could be employed as a biomarker of both current cognitive impairment and future cognitive decline in PD.

Fonksiyonel Manyetik Rezonans Görüntüleme (fMRG) verilerine dayanan fonksiyonel bağlantısallık analizleri beyin araştırmalarında önemli bir yer kazanmıştır. Özellikle dinlenim durumunda beynin büyük ölçekli nörokognitif ağlarının ortaya koyulabilmesi ve bunların hastalıklardaki değişimlerinin gösterilebilmesi bu araştırma yöntemine olan ilgiyi artırmıştır. Öte yandan, genel hatlarıyla birbirine benzer olsa da detayda farklılaşan sonuçlar üreten alternatif fonksiyonel bağlantısallık hesaplama yaklaşımları mevcuttur. Fonksiyonel nörogörüntülemenin etkin kullanımı için bu farklı yaklaşımların, ele alınan problem ve incelenen popülasyona bağlı olarak beynin büyük ölçekli ağlarının yapısal örüntülerini ve işlevlerini ortaya koymaktaki güçlü ve zayıf yönlerinin anlaşılması gereklidir. Bu çerçevede, hipotez testi için literatürden kaynaklı anatomik ilgi alanlarının seçimine dayanan tohum temelli fonksiyonel bağlantısallık analizi daha güçlü bir yaklaşımken, keşifçi araştırmalarda tümüyle veri güdümlü olan bağımsız bileşen analizi (BBA) tüm beyin verisini tarafsız değerlendirme olanağı sunmaktadır. Yöntemler arasındaki diğer önemli ayrım, grup analizleri için incelenen beyinlerin anatomik olarak ortak bir şablon üzerinde çakıştırılması veya anatomik tanımlamaların her beynin kendi mekânsal koordinatlarında gerçekleştirilmesidir. Beyinde büyük ölçekli deformasyonlara yol açan patolojilerde ikinci yolun seçimi başarımı büyük ölçüde arttırırken, büyük ölçekli sağlıklı katılımcı veri kümelerinden normatif sonuçlar çıkartmak için ilk yaklaşım daha avantajlı olabilir. Son olarak, bireysel koordinatlarda kortekse ilişkin anatomik tanımlamaların gerçekleştirilmesinde hacim veya yüzeye dayalı yaklaşımlar da fonksiyonel bağlantısallık çalışmalarının sonuçlarını önemli ölçüde etkilemektedir. Bu derlemede, fonksiyonel bağlantısallık hesaplama yaklaşımları bu üç perspektiften ele alınarak karşılaştırılacaktır., Functional connectivity analyses based on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data have gained an important place in brain research. There are alternative functional connectivity estimation approaches, which, despite the similarity of the overall results, produce significant differences in their details. For effective use of the functional connectivity metrics, the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches need to be well understood. While the seed-based functional connectivity analyses based on the selection of those anatomic regions of interest derived from the literature represent a stronger approach for hypothesis testing, the independent component analysis (ICA) as a data-driven approach provides an unbiased evaluation possibility for exploratory data analysis. Another difference between the methods is related to group analyses in terms of registering individual brains to a common template or implementing anatomical definitions on the spatial coordinates of individual brains. While the latter increases the success in studies on pathologies that lead to large-scale brain deformations, the former may be advantageous for deriving normative results from large data sets. Lastly, volume vs surface-based approaches for the definition of cortical anatomy in the individual space also significantly affect the results of functional connectivity analyses. In this review, functional connectivity estimation methods will be compared by evaluating them using these three perspectives.

PubMed ID: 32632889 Parkinson's disease (PD) with mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) is currently diagnosed based on an arbitrarily predefined standard deviation of neuropsychological test scores, and more objective biomarkers for PD-MCI diagnosis are needed. The purpose of this study was to define possible brain perfusion-based biomarkers of not only mild cognitive impairment, but also risky gene carriers in PD using arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL-MRI). Fifteen healthy controls (HC), 26 cognitively normal PD (PD-CN), and 27 PD-MCI subjects participated in this study. ASL-MRI data were acquired by signal targeting with alternating radio-frequency labeling with Look-Locker sequence at 3 T. Single nucleotide polymorphism genotyping for rs9468 [microtubule-associated protein tau (MAPT) H1/H1 versus H1/H2 haplotype] was performed using a Stratagene Mx3005p real-time polymerase chain-reaction system (Agilent Technologies, USA). There were 15 subjects withMAPTH1/H1 and 11 subjects withMAPTH1/H2 within PD-MCI, and 33 subjects withMAPTH1/H1 and 19 subjects withMAPTH1/H2 within all PD. Voxel-wise differences of cerebral blood flow (CBF) values between HC, PD-CN and PD-MCI were assessed by one-way analysis of variance followed by pairwise post hoc comparisons. Further, the subgroup of PD patients carrying the riskyMAPTH1/H1 haplotype was compared with noncarriers (MAPTH1/H2 haplotype) in terms of CBF by a two-samplettest. A pattern that could be summarized as "posterior hypoperfusion" (PH) differentiated the PD-MCI group from the HC group with an accuracy of 92.6% (sensitivity = 93%, specificity = 93%). Additionally, the PD patients withMAPTH1/H1 haplotype had decreased perfusion than the ones with H1/H2 haplotype at the posterior areas of the visual network (VN), default mode network (DMN), and dorsal attention network (DAN). The PH-type pattern in ASL-MRI could be employed as a biomarker of both current cognitive impairment and future cognitive decline in PD. This study was supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) 1001 Grant #115S219 and Istanbul University Scientific Research Projects Unit Project #1567/42362 Publisher's Version

Event-related potentials (ERPs) and oscillations (EROs) are reliable measures of cognition, but they require time-locked electroencephalographic (EEG) data to repetitive triggers that are not available in continuous sensory input streams. However, such real-life-like stimulation by videos or virtual-reality environments may serve as powerful means of creating specific cognitive or affective states and help to investigate dysfunctions in psychiatric and neurological disorders more efficiently. This study aims to develop a method to generate ERPs and EROs during watching videos. Repeated luminance changes were introduced on short video segments, while EEGs of 10 subjects were recorded. The ERP/EROs time-locked to these distortions were analyzed in time and time–frequency domains and tested for their cognitive significance through a long term memory test that included frames from the watched videos. For each subject, ERPs and EROs corresponding to video segments of recalled images with 25% shortest and 25% longest reaction times were compared. ERPs produced by transient luminance changes displayed statistically significant fluctuations both in time and time–frequency domains. Statistical analyses showed that a positivity around 450 ms, a negativity around 500 ms and delta and theta EROs correlated with memory performance. Few studies mixed video streams with simultaneous ERP/ERO experiments with discrete task-relevant or passively presented auditory or somatosensory stimuli, while the present study, by obtaining ERPs and EROs to task-irrelevant events in the same sensory modality as that of the continuous sensory input, produces minimal interference with the main focus of attention on the video stream.

Objective To investigate cognitive functions in non-demented patients with early-onset Parkinson's disease (PD), and to compare PARK2 gene mutation carriers and non-carriers by means of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Methods The participants comprised patients with early-onset PD (EOPD) and healthy controls (HC). Patients with EOPD were divided into two groups as carriers of known pathogenic variants of PARK2 gene (EOPD-PC) and non-carriers of genes involved in familial PD (EOPD-NC). ERP data were collected during auditory oddball and visual continuous performance test (CPT). Results Both EOPD groups (EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC) displayed reduced and delayed P3 in response to oddball target and CPT NoGo. CPT Go P3 was reduced in EOPD-NC but not in EOPD-PC. Oddball target N1 was reduced and P2 was enhanced in both EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC. In both cognitive tasks, RTs were prolonged and accuracy was lower in EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC. Conclusions We found several EOPD-related neurophysiologic changes, implying impairments in cognitive functions. Pairwise comparisons between EOPD-PC and EOPD-NC revealed no significant ERP marker. Significance In this study, the confounding effect of normative aging was somewhat excluded compared with many previous studies. In contrast with the many oddball studies in non-demented PD, we clearly observed reduced and prolonged P3 in early-onset PD. Our NoGo P3 findings also contribute to the limited ERP research concerning response inhibition.

Objective Juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME) is typified by the occurrence of myoclonic seizures after awakening, though another common trait is myoclonic seizures triggered by photic stimulation. We aimed to investigate the functional connectivity (FC) of nuclei in the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS), thalamus and visual cortex in JME with and without photosensitivity. Methods We examined 29 patients with JME (16 photosensitive (PS), 13 non- photosensitive-(NPS)) and 28 healthy controls (HCs) using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Seed-to-voxel FC analyses were performed using 25 seeds, including the thalamus, visual cortex, and ARAS nuclei. Results Mesencephalic reticular formation seed revealed significant hyperconnectivity between the bilateral paracingulate gyrus and anterior cingulate cortex in JME group, and in both JME-PS and JME-NPS subgroups compared to HCs (pFWE-corr Conclusions In JME, altered functional connectivity of the arousal networks might contribute to the understanding of myoclonia after awakening, whereas increased connectivity of posterior thalamus might explain photosensitivity.

Functional neuroimaging studies show an overactivation of speech and language related homologous areas of the right hemisphere in persons who stutter. In this study, we inhibited Broca's homologues using 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) and assessed its effects on stuttering severity. The investigated cortical areas included pars opercularis (BA44), anterior and posterior pars triangularis (BA45), mouth area on the primary motor cortex (BA4). We collected reading and speaking samples before and after rTMS sessions and calculated the percentage of syllables stuttered. Only right anterior pars triangularis stimulation induced significant changes in speech fluency. Notably, the effects were differential for reading and speaking conditions. Overall, our results provide supportive evidence that right anterior BA45 may be a critical region for stuttering. The observed differential effects following the inhibition of right anterior BA45 merits further study of contributions of this region on different language domains in persons who stutter. Istanbul University

Neuroimaging research about social anxiety disorder (SAD) points to hyperactivity in the fear circuit and altered connectivity between the fear circuit and the intrinsic connectivity networks that modulate it. We investigated intrinsic functional connectivity changes in SAD patients by taking into consideration the commonly overlooked comorbidity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We compared intrinsic functional connectivity alterations in 16 patients with pure SAD, 18 patients with SAD and comorbid ADHD and 21 healthy controls using seed-to-voxel functional connectivity analyses. Hypoconnectivity of the right fusiform gyrus with the left lingual gyrus was the unique difference between whole SAD group and healthy controls, while in the pure SAD group the fusiform gyrus displayed hypoconnectivity with the posterior default mode network (DMN) regions. In contrast, ADHD comorbidity was associated with hyperconnectivities of the salience network (SN) with the fusiform cortex and the posterior DMN regions, and hyperconnectivities of the posterior DMN with visual, somatosensory and motor cortices. The dichotomic dissociation of the SAD related functional connectivity changes into hypoconnectivities in the pure SAD group vs hyperconnectivities in the SAD-ADHD group leads also to the question, whether ADHD treatment can be considered an alternative for selected SAD cases.

This study aims to specify biomarkers of Parkinson's disease mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) based on fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) maps obtained from diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DWMRI). T1 and diffusion weighted MR images collected from 27 cognitively normal Parkinson's disease (PD-CN), 32 mild cognitively impaired Parkinson's disease (PD-MCI), and 18 healthy control (HC) volunteers, at a clinical 3T MR scanner, were processed using FMRIB Software Library (FSL)'s toolboxes. Average regional values of FA and MD maps and tract based spatial statistics (TBSS) were utilized to define statistically significant differences between the participant subject groups.

Multiple executive processes are suggested to be engaged at Stroop test, and time-frequency analysis is acknowledged to improve the informative utility of EEG in cognitive brain research. We aimed to investigate event-related oscillations associated with the Stroop test. EEG data was collected from 23 healthy volunteers while they performed a computer version of Stroop test. Both evoked (phase-locked) and total (phase-locked+non-phase-locked) oscillatory responses in the EEG were analyzed by wavelet transform. Data from the congruent (color-word matching) and incongruent stimuli (color-word non-matching) conditions are compared. In the incongruent condition, N450 wave was more negative and amplitude of the late slow wave was more positive. In the time-frequency plane, the fronto-central total theta amplitude (300-700 ms) was larger in the incongruent condition. The evoked delta (250-600 ms) was larger in the congruent condition particularly over parieto-occipital regions. The larger frontal theta response in the incongruent condition was associated with the detection of interference and inhibition of the response to task-irrelevant features, while the larger evoked delta in the congruent condition was suggestive of the easier decision process owing to congruency between the physical attribute and the verbal meaning of the stimuli. Furthermore, in the incongruent condition, amplitude of the occipital total alpha in the very late phase (700-900 ms) was smaller. This prolonged desynchronization in the alpha band could be reflecting augmentation of attentional filters in visual modality for the next stimulus. These multiple findings on EEG time-frequency plane provide improved description of the overlapping processes in Stroop test.

Background Sensory-motor integration (SMI) is an important process in the learning and execution of voluntary movements. This study aimed to test the electrophysiological course of SMI along with fMRI during visuomotor sequence learning (VMSL). Methods Nineteen healthy participants were included. They performed the VMSL task with their left hand. On the first day, they completed one training run and a test run. They repeated daily training tasks and were re-tested on the fifth day. Ipsilateral electrical median nerve stimulation followed by transcranial magnetic stimulation of the contralateral motor cortex with various interstimulus intervals (ISI) were performed. Recordings were made from left forearm flexor and extensor muscles. SMI studies were performed at before (T0) and after (T1) 1st-day training, and after 5th-day training (T2). Motor response (MEP) ratios for each ISI were calculated. Mean reaction time (RT) and mean error rate were measured. Results RTs (training: 283.37 ± 65.76; test: 235.20 ± 51.00; re-test: 194.26 ± 50.26 ms) and mean error rates (0.19 ± 0.16; 0.06 ± 0.06; 0.02 ± 0.03, respectively) improved significantly in the early and late stages. MEP ratios showed early afferent inhibition (SAI, ISIs 20–35 ms), late afferent inhibition (LAI, ISIs 80–200 ms) and intervening afferent facilitation (AF) for forearm flexors. Although MEP ratios at T0 andT1 were very similar, less SAI and more AF were observed at T2. Conclusions There was a tendency for decreased SAI and increased AF towards the end of the learning period. This may be caused by the learning task which requires a more prominent sensorimotor integration towards the end of the study.

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Acquiring functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and functional magnetic resonance-imaging (fMRI) data are usually done asynchronously. In order to correlate these two different modalities’ data, measurements must be performed at the same time. In this study, we have designed a new MR compatible continuous wave intensity based fNIRS device to overcome this problem. For MR compatible fNIRS, we used two LEDs with wavelengths at 660 and 870 nm. There are four photodiodes for light detection. LEDs operated in a sequential multiplexing mode with adjustable "on" time for each LED. Emitted and diffused light was transferred to and from the tissue through 10 m long single mode plastic optical fibers (INDUSTRIAL FIBER OPTICS, INC.). By using fibers, we overcome MR compatibility problems that can be caused by semi-conductors on probe. This MR compatible fNIRS design can provide synchronous measurements with low cost.

Objective Action monitoring has been studied in terms of EEG correlates of accuracy/inaccuracy. EEG signals related to the confidence level (uncertainty) of the subject about given responses remain to be clarified. Methods Two discrimination tasks that create difficulty in stimulus processing and response selection stages of decision making were used. Conditions were certain-hit (hit trials where subjects were certain), certain-error (trials where subject was aware of the error), uncertain (trials where subject was uncertain). Analyzes of event-related potentials (ERP) (ERN, Pe, P3) in the time domain were extended by time–frequency analysis of both phase-locked and non-phase-locked oscillatory activities. Results Errors caused by difficulty in stimulus processing led more uncertainty than the ones related to the response selection, and tended to elicit ERN with shorter latency. Each condition was discriminated from the others by at least one parameter. Uncertainty was discriminated by total theta activity following response, total delta activity following stimulus and mean P3 amplitude. Conclusions Subjective confidence levels of decision making can be discriminated by time and time–frequency analyses of ERPs and EEG. Significance Time–frequency parameters of EEG can be useful in the detection of subjective confidence in single-trials, which might be efficiently used for faster human–computer interaction.