Lenticular nucleus volume predicts performance in real-time strategy game: cross-sectional and training approach using voxel-based morphometry.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Kowalczyk-Grebska N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8246877 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Training in action video games can increase the speed of perceptual processing. However, it is unknown whether video-game training can lead to broad-based changes in higher-level competencies such as cognitive flexibility, a core and neurally distributed component of cognition. To determine whether video gaming can enhance cognitive flexibility and, if so, why these changes occur, the current study compares two versions of a real-time strategy (RTS) game. Using a meta-analytic Bayes factor approach, we found that the gaming condition that emphasized maintenance and rapid switching between multiple information and action sources led to a large increase in cognitive flexibility as measured by a wide array of non-video gaming tasks. Theoretically, the results suggest that the distributed brain networks supporting cognitive flexibility can be tuned by engrossing video game experience that stresses maintenance and rapid manipulation of multiple information sources. Practically, these results suggest avenues for increasing cognitive function.
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Project description:Nicotine modulates prefrontal processing when tested with functional imaging. Previous studies on changes in regional brain volumes in small samples, reporting different life-time exposure to nicotine, identified reduced volume in smokers in prefrontal areas but reported controversial results for other areas. We investigated the association of cigarette smoking and regional gray and white matter volume by using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for T1-weighted high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging in 315 current-smokers and 659 never-smokers from the representative Study of Health in Pomerania (SHIP). Our study showed that in current-smokers smoking is significantly associated with gray matter volume loss in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, the insula, and the olfactory gyrus. White matter volumes were not relevantly reduced in current-smokers. In current-smokers, we found associations of gray matter loss and smoking exposure (pack-years) in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior and middle cingulate cortex, and the superior temporal and angular gyrus, which however did not stand corrections for multiple testing. We confirmed associations between smoking and gray matter differences in the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex and the insula in the general population of Pomerania (Germany). For the first time, we identified differences in brain volumes in the olfactory gyrus. Other cerebral regions did not show significant differences when correcting for multiple comparisons within the whole brain. The regions of structural deficits might be involved in addictive behavior and withdrawal symptoms, whereas further investigations have to show if the observed atrophies were caused by smoking itself or are preexisting differences between smoking and non-smoking individuals.
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Project description:Normal aging is characterized by decline in cognitive functioning in conjunction with extensive gray matter (GM) atrophy. A first aim of this study was to determine GM volume differences related to aging by comparing two groups of participants, middle-aged group (MAG, mean age 41 years, N = 16) and older adults (OG, mean age 71 years, N = 14) who underwent an magnetic resonance images (MRI) voxel-based morphometry (VBM) evaluation. The VBM analyses included two optimized pipelines, for the cortex and for the cerebellum. Participants were also evaluated on a wide range of cognitive tests assessing both domain-general and language-specific processes, in order to examine how GM volume differences between OG and MAG relate to cognitive performance. Our results show smaller bilateral GM volume in the OG relative to the MAG, in several cerebral and right cerebellar regions involved in language and executive functions. Importantly, our results also revealed smaller GM volume in the right cerebellum in OG relative to MAG, supporting the idea of a complex cognitive role for this structure. This study provides a broad picture of cerebral, but also cerebellar and cognitive changes associated with normal aging.
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Project description:BACKGROUND: Aged patients (>50 years old) with residual schizophrenic symptoms differ from young patients. They represent a subpopulation with a more unfavorable Kraepelinian course and have an increased risk (up to 30%) for dementia of unknown origin. However, our current understanding of age-related brain changes in schizophrenia is derived from studies that included less than 17% of patients who were older than 50 years of age. This study investigated the anatomical distribution of gray matter (GM) brain deficits in aged patients with ongoing schizophrenia. METHODS: Voxel-based morphometry was applied to 3D-T1 magnetic resonance images obtained from 27 aged patients with schizophrenia (mean age of 60 years) and 40 age-matched normal controls. RESULTS: Older patients with schizophrenia showed a bilateral reduction of GM volume in the thalamus, the prefrontal cortex, and in a large posterior region centered on the occipito-temporo-parietal junction. Only the latter region showed accelerated GM volume loss with increasing age. None of these results could be accounted for by institutionalization, antipsychotic medication, or cognitive scores. CONCLUSIONS: This study replicated most common findings in patients with schizophrenia with regard to thalamic and frontal GM deficits. However, it uncovered an unexpected large region of GM atrophy in the posterior tertiary cortices. The latter observation may be specific to this aged and chronically symptomatic subpopulation, as atrophy in this region is rarely reported in younger patients and is accelerated with age.
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Project description:Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies of Parkinson's disease (PD), have yielded mixed results, possibly due to several studies not accounting for common nuisance variables (age, sex, and total intracranial volume [TICV]). TICV is particularly important because there is evidence for larger TICV in PD. We explored the influence of these covariates on VBM by 1) comparing PD patients and controls before adding covariates, after adding age and sex, and after adding age, sex and TICV, and 2) by comparing controls split into large and small TICV before and after controlling for TICV, with age and sex accounted for in both analyses. Experiment 1 consisted of 40 PD participants and 40 controls. Experiment 2 consisted of 88 controls median split by TICV. All participants completed an MRI on a 3 T scanner. TICV was calculated as gray + white + CSF from Freesurfer. VBM was performed on T1 images using an optimized VBM protocol. Volume differences were assessed using a voxel-wise GLM analysis. Clusters were considered significant at >10 voxels and p < .05 corrected for familywise error. Before controlling for covariates, PD showed reduced GM in temporal, occipital, and cerebellar regions. Controlling for age and sex did not affect the pattern of significance. Controlling for TICV reduced the size of the significant region although it still contained portions of bilateral temporal lobes, occipital lobes and cerebellum. The large TICV group showed reduced volume in temporal, parietal, and cerebellar areas. None of these differences survived controlling for TICV. This demonstrates that TICV influences VBM results independently from other factors. Controlling for TICV in VBM studies is recommended.
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Project description:Binge drinking or heavy episodic drinking is a high prevalent pattern of alcohol consumption among young people in several countries. Despite increasing evidence that binge drinking is associated with impairments in executive aspects of working memory (i.e. self-ordered working memory), processes known to depend on the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 46 and 9), less is known about the impact of binge drinking on prefrontal gray matter integrity. Here, we investigated the effects of binge drinking on gray matter volume of mid- dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in youths. We used voxel-based morphometry on the structural magnetic resonance images of subjects reporting a persistent (at least three years) binge drinking pattern of alcohol use (n = 11; age 22.43 ± 1.03) and control subjects (n = 21; age 22.18 ± 1.08) to measure differences in gray matter volume between both groups. In a region of interest analysis of the mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, after co-varying for age and gender, we observed significantly larger gray matter volume in the left mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 46 and 9) in binge drinkers in comparison with control subjects. Furthermore, there was a significant positive correlation between left mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex volume and Self-Ordered Pointing Test (SOPT) total errors score in binge drinkers. The left mid-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex volume also correlated with the quantity and speed of alcohol intake. These findings indicate that a repeated exposure to alcohol -that does not meet criteria for alcohol dependence- throughout post-adolescent years and young adulthood is linked with structural anomalies in mid-dorsolateral prefrontal regions critically involved in executive aspects of working memory.
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Project description:Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia exhibit severe and lasting difficulties in recognizing faces despite the absence of apparent brain abnormalities. We used voxel-based morphometry to investigate whether developmental prosopagnosics show subtle neuroanatomical differences from controls. An analysis based on segmentation of T1-weighted images from 17 developmental prosopagnosics and 18 matched controls revealed that they had reduced grey matter volume in the right anterior inferior temporal lobe and in the superior temporal sulcus/middle temporal gyrus bilaterally. In addition, a voxel-based morphometry analysis based on the segmentation of magnetization transfer parameter maps showed that developmental prosopagnosics also had reduced grey matter volume in the right middle fusiform gyrus and the inferior temporal gyrus. Multiple regression analyses relating three distinct behavioural component scores, derived from a principal component analysis, to grey matter volume revealed an association between a component related to facial identity and grey matter volume in the left superior temporal sulcus/middle temporal gyrus plus the right middle fusiform gyrus/inferior temporal gyrus. Grey matter volume in the lateral occipital cortex was associated with component scores related to object recognition tasks. Our results demonstrate that developmental prosopagnosics have reduced grey matter volume in several regions known to respond selectively to faces and provide new evidence that integrity of these areas relates to face recognition ability.
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Project description:Neuroimaging has provided compelling data about the brain. Yet the underlying mechanisms of many neuroimaging techniques have not been elucidated. Here we report a voxel-based morphometry (VBM) study of Thy1-YFP mice following auditory fear conditioning complemented by confocal microscopy analysis of cortical thickness, neuronal morphometric features and nuclei size/density. Significant VBM results included the nuclei of the amygdala, the insula and the auditory cortex. There were no significant VBM changes in a control brain area. Focusing on the auditory cortex, confocal analysis showed that fear conditioning led to a significantly increased density of shorter and wider dendritic spines, while there were no spine differences in the control area. Of all the morphology metrics studied, the spine density was the only one to show significant correlation with the VBM signal. These data demonstrate that learning-induced structural changes detected by VBM may be partially explained by increases in dendritic spine density.
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