Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy.

Pregnancy is a period of profound hormonal and physiological changes experienced by millions of women annually, yet the neural changes unfolding in the maternal brain throughout gestation are not well studied in humans. Leveraging precision imaging, we mapped neuroanatomical changes in an individual from preconception through 2 years postpartum. Pronounced decreases in gray matter volume and cortical thickness were evident across the brain, standing in contrast to increases in white matter microstructural integrity, ventricle volume and cerebrospinal fluid, with few regions untouched by the transition to motherhood. This dataset serves as a comprehensive map of the human brain across gestation, providing an open-access resource for the brain imaging community to further explore and understand the maternal brain.

Towards optimized methodological parameters for maximizing the behavioral effects of transcranial direct current stimulation.

Introduction: Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) administers low-intensity direct current electrical stimulation to brain regions via electrodes arranged on the surface of the scalp. The core promise of tDCS is its ability to modulate brain activity and affect performance on diverse cognitive functions (affording causal inferences regarding regional brain activity and behavior), but the optimal methodological parameters for maximizing behavioral effects remain to be elucidated. Here we sought to examine the effects of 10 stimulation and experimental design factors across a series of five cognitive domains: motor performance, visual search, working memory, vigilance, and response inhibition. The objective was to identify a set of optimal parameter settings that consistently and reliably maximized the behavioral effects of tDCS within each cognitive domain. Methods: We surveyed tDCS effects on these various cognitive functions in healthy young adults, ultimately resulting in 721 effects across 106 published reports. Hierarchical Bayesian meta-regression models were fit to characterize how (and to what extent) these design parameters differentially predict the likelihood of positive/negative behavioral outcomes. Results: Consistent with many previous meta-analyses of tDCS effects, extensive variability was observed across tasks and measured outcomes. Consequently, most design parameters did not confer consistent advantages or disadvantages to behavioral effects-a domain-general model suggested an advantage to using within-subjects designs (versus between-subjects) and the tendency for cathodal stimulation (relative to anodal stimulation) to produce reduced behavioral effects, but these associations were scarcely-evident in domain-specific models. Discussion: These findings highlight the urgent need for tDCS studies to more systematically probe the effects of these parameters on behavior to fulfill the promise of identifying causal links between brain function and cognition.

Diurnal Fluctuations in Steroid Hormones Tied to Variation in Intrinsic Functional Connectivity in a Densely Sampled Male.

Most of mammalian physiology is under the control of biological rhythms, including the endocrine system with time-varying hormone secretion. Precision neuroimaging studies provide unique insights into how the endocrine system dynamically regulates aspects of the human brain. Recently, we established estrogen's ability to drive widespread patterns of connectivity and enhance the global efficiency of large-scale brain networks in a woman sampled every 24 h across 30 consecutive days, capturing a complete menstrual cycle. Steroid hormone production also follows a pronounced sinusoidal pattern, with a peak in testosterone between 6 and 7 A.M. and nadir between 7 and 8 P.M. To capture the brain's response to diurnal changes in hormone production, we carried out a companion precision imaging study of a healthy adult man who completed MRI and venipuncture every 12-24 h across 30 consecutive days. Results confirmed robust diurnal fluctuations in testosterone, 17ß-estradiol-the primary form of estrogen-and cortisol. Standardized regression analyses revealed widespread associations between testosterone, estradiol, and cortisol concentrations and whole-brain patterns of coherence. In particular, functional connectivity in the Dorsal Attention Network was coupled with diurnally fluctuating hormones. Further, comparing dense-sampling datasets between a man and a naturally cycling woman revealed that fluctuations in sex hormones are tied to patterns of whole-brain coherence in both sexes and to a heightened degree in the male. Together, these findings enhance our understanding of steroid hormones as rapid neuromodulators and provide evidence that diurnal changes in steroid hormones are associated with patterns of whole-brain functional connectivity.

Neuroanatomical changes observed over the course of a human pregnancy.

Pregnancy is a period of profound hormonal and physiological change experienced by millions of women annually, yet the neural changes unfolding in the maternal brain throughout gestation have not been studied in humans. Leveraging precision imaging, we mapped neuroanatomical changes in an individual from preconception through two years postpartum. Pronounced decreases in gray matter volume and cortical thickness were evident across the brain, which stand in contrast to increases in white matter microstructural integrity, ventricle volume, and cerebrospinal fluid, with few regions untouched by the transition to motherhood. This dataset serves as the first comprehensive map of the human brain across gestation, providing an open-access resource for the brain imaging community to stimulate further exploration and discovery.

High-amplitude network co-fluctuations linked to variation in hormone concentrations over the menstrual cycle.

Many studies have shown that the human endocrine system modulates brain function, reporting associations between fluctuations in hormone concentrations and brain connectivity. However, how hormonal fluctuations impact fast changes in brain network organization over short timescales remains unknown. Here, we leverage a recently proposed framework for modeling co-fluctuations between the activity of pairs of brain regions at a framewise timescale. In previous studies we showed that time points corresponding to high-amplitude co-fluctuations disproportionately contributed to the time-averaged functional connectivity pattern and that these co-fluctuation patterns could be clustered into a low-dimensional set of recurring "states." Here, we assessed the relationship between these network states and quotidian variation in hormone concentrations. Specifically, we were interested in whether the frequency with which network states occurred was related to hormone concentration. We addressed this question using a dense-sampling dataset (N = 1 brain). In this dataset, a single individual was sampled over the course of two endocrine states: a natural menstrual cycle and while the subject underwent selective progesterone suppression via oral hormonal contraceptives. During each cycle, the subject underwent 30 daily resting-state fMRI scans and blood draws. Our analysis of the imaging data revealed two repeating network states. We found that the frequency with which state 1 occurred in scan sessions was significantly correlated with follicle-stimulating and luteinizing hormone concentrations. We also constructed representative networks for each scan session using only "event frames"-those time points when an event was determined to have occurred. We found that the weights of specific subsets of functional connections were robustly correlated with fluctuations in the concentration of not only luteinizing and follicle-stimulating hormones, but also progesterone and estradiol.

Diurnal fluctuations in steroid hormones tied to variation in intrinsic functional connectivity in a densely sampled male.

Most of mammalian physiology is under the control of biological rhythms, including the endocrine system with time-varying hormone secretion. Precision neuroimaging studies provide unique insights into the means through which our endocrine system regulates dynamic properties of the human brain. Recently, we established estrogen's ability to drive widespread patterns of connectivity and enhance the functional efficiency of large-scale brain networks in a woman sampled every 24h across 30 consecutive days, capturing a complete menstrual cycle. Steroid hormone production also follows a pronounced sinusoidal pattern, with a peak in testosterone between 6-7am and nadir between 7-8pm. To capture the brain's response to diurnal changes in hormone production, we carried out a companion precision imaging study of a healthy adult man who completed MRI and venipuncture every 12-24 hours across 30 consecutive days. Results confirmed robust diurnal fluctuations in testosterone, cortisol, and estradiol. Standardized regression analyses revealed predominantly positive associations between testosterone, cortisol, and estradiol concentrations and whole-brain patterns of coherence. In particular, functional connectivity in Dorsal Attention and Salience/Ventral Attention Networks were coupled with diurnally fluctuating hormones. Further, comparing dense-sampling datasets between a man and naturally-cycling woman revealed that fluctuations in sex hormones are tied to patterns of whole-brain coherence to a comparable degree in both sexes. Together, these findings enhance our understanding of steroid hormones as rapid neuromodulators and provide evidence that diurnal changes in steroid hormones are tied to patterns of whole-brain functional connectivity.

Widespread frontoparietal fMRI activity is greatly affected by changes in criterion placement, not discriminability, during recognition memory and visual detection tests.

Widespread frontoparietal activity is consistently observed in recognition memory tests that compare studied ("target") versus unstudied ("nontarget") responses. However, there are conflicting accounts that ascribe various aspects of frontoparietal activity to mnemonic evidence versus decisional processes. According to Signal Detection Theory, recognition judgments require individuals to decide whether the memory strength of an item exceeds an evidence threshold-the decision criterion-for reporting previously studied items. Yet, most fMRI studies fail to manipulate both memory strength and decision criteria, making it difficult to appropriately identify frontoparietal activity associated with each process. In the current experiment, we manipulated both discriminability and decision criteria across recognition memory and visual detection tests during fMRI scanning to assess how frontoparietal activity is affected by each manipulation. Our findings revealed that maintaining a conservative versus liberal decision criterion drastically affects frontoparietal activity in target versus nontarget response contrasts for both recognition memory and visual detection tests. However, manipulations of discriminability showed virtually no differences in frontoparietal activity in target versus nontarget response or item contrasts. Comparing across task domains, we observed similar modulations of frontoparietal activity across criterion conditions, though the recognition memory task revealed larger activations in both magnitude and spatial extent in these contrasts. Nonetheless, there appears to be some domain specificity in frontoparietal activity associated with the maintenance of a conservative versus liberal criterion. We propose that widespread frontoparietal activity observed in target versus nontarget contrasts is largely attributable to response bias where increased activity may reflect inhibition of a prepotent response, which differs depending on whether a person maintains a conservative versus liberal decision criterion.

Preliminary study: quantification of chronic pain from physiological data.

Introduction: It is unknown if physiological changes associated with chronic pain could be measured with inexpensive physiological sensors. Recently, acute pain and laboratory-induced pain have been quantified with physiological sensors. Objectives: To investigate the extent to which chronic pain can be quantified with physiological sensors. Methods: Data were collected from chronic pain sufferers who subjectively rated their pain on a 0 to 10 visual analogue scale, using our recently developed pain meter. Physiological variables, including pulse, temperature, and motion signals, were measured at head, neck, wrist, and finger with multiple sensors. To quantify pain, features were first extracted from 10-second windows. Linear models with recursive feature elimination were fit for each subject. A random forest regression model was used for pain score prediction for the population-level model. Results: Predictive performance was assessed using leave-one-recording-out cross-validation and nonparametric permutation testing. For individual-level models, 5 of 12 subjects yielded intraclass correlation coefficients between actual and predicted pain scores of 0.46 to 0.75. For the population-level model, the random forest method yielded an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.58. Bland-Altman analysis shows that our model tends to overestimate the lower end of the pain scores and underestimate the higher end. Conclusion: This is the first demonstration that physiological data can be correlated with chronic pain, both for individuals and populations. Further research and more extensive data will be required to assess whether this approach could be used as a "chronic pain meter" to assess the level of chronic pain in patients.

Dynamic Phase Extraction: Applications in Pulse Rate Variability.

Pulse rate variability is a physiological parameter that has been extensively studied and correlated with many physical ailments. However, the phase relationship between inter-beat interval, IBI, and breathing has very rarely been studied. Develop a technique by which the phase relationship between IBI and breathing can be accurately and efficiently extracted from photoplethysmography (PPG) data. A program based on Lock-in Amplifier technology was written in Python to implement a novel technique, Dynamic Phase Extraction. It was tested using a breath pacer and a PPG sensor on 6 subjects who followed a breath pacer at varied breathing rates. The data were then analyzed using both traditional methods and the novel technique (Dynamic Phase Extraction) utilizing a breath pacer. Pulse data was extracted using a PPG sensor. Dynamic Phase Extraction (DPE) gave the magnitudes of the variation in IBI associated with breathing [Formula: see text] measured with photoplethysmography during paced breathing (with premature ventricular contractions, abnormal arrhythmias, and other artifacts edited out). [Formula: see text] correlated well with two standard measures of pulse rate variability: the Standard Deviation of the inter-beat interval (SDNN) (ρ = 0.911) and with the integrated value of the Power Spectral Density between 0.04 and 0.15 Hz (Low Frequency Power or LF Power) (ρ = 0.885). These correlations were comparable to the correlation between the SDNN and the LF Power (ρ = 0.877). In addition to the magnitude [Formula: see text], Dynamic Phase Extraction also gave the phase between the breath pacer and the changes in the inter-beat interval (IBI) due to respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA), and correlated well with the phase extracted using a Fourier transform (ρ = 0.857). Dynamic Phase Extraction can extract both the phase between the breath pacer and the changes in IBI due to the respiratory sinus arrhythmia component of pulse rate variability ([Formula: see text], but is limited by needing a breath pacer.

Habituation of the stress response multiplex to repeated cold pressor exposure.

Humans show remarkable habituation to aversive events as reflected by changes of both subjective report and objective measures of stress. Although much experimental human research focuses on the effects of stress, relatively little is known about the cascade of physiological and neural responses that contribute to stress habituation. The cold pressor test (CPT) is a common method for inducing acute stress in human participants in the laboratory; however, there are gaps in our understanding of the global state changes resulting from this stress-induction technique and how these responses change over multiple exposures. Here, we measure the stress response to repeated CPT exposures using an extensive suite of physiologic measures and state-of-the-art analysis techniques. In two separate sessions on different days, participants underwent five 90 s CPT exposures of both feet and five warm water control exposures, while electrocardiography (ECG), impedance cardiography, continuous blood pressure, pupillometry, scalp electroencephalography (EEG), salivary cortisol and self-reported pain assessments were recorded. A diverse array of adaptive responses are reported that vary in their temporal dynamics within each exposure as well as habituation across repeated exposures. During cold-water exposure there was a cascade of changes across several cardiovascular measures (elevated heart rate (HR), cardiac output (CO) and Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP) and reduced left ventricular ejection time (LVET), stroke volume (SV) and high-frequency heart rate variability (HF)). Increased pupil dilation was observed, as was increased power in low-frequency bands (delta and theta) across frontal EEG electrode sites. Several cardiovascular measures also habituated over repeated cold-water exposures (HR, MAP, CO, SV, LVET) as did pupil dilation and alpha frequency activity across the scalp. Anticipation of cold water induced stress effects in the time-period immediately prior to exposure, indexed by increased pupil size and cortical disinhibition in the alpha and beta frequency bands across central scalp sites. These results provide comprehensive insight into the evolution of a diverse array of stress responses to an acute noxious stressor, and how these responses adaptively contribute to stress habituation.

The Menstrual Cycle Modulates Whole-Brain Turbulent Dynamics.

Brain dynamics have recently been shown to be modulated by rhythmic changes in female sex hormone concentrations across an entire menstrual cycle. However, many questions remain regarding the specific differences in information processing across spacetime between the two main follicular and luteal phases in the menstrual cycle. Using a novel turbulent dynamic framework, we studied whole-brain information processing across spacetime scales (i.e., across long and short distances in the brain) in two open-source, dense-sampled resting-state datasets. A healthy naturally cycling woman in her early twenties was scanned over 30 consecutive days during a naturally occurring menstrual cycle and under a hormonal contraceptive regime. Our results indicated that the luteal phase is characterized by significantly higher information transmission across spatial scales than the follicular phase. Furthermore, we found significant differences in turbulence levels between the two phases in brain regions belonging to the default mode, salience/ventral attention, somatomotor, control, and dorsal attention networks. Finally, we found that changes in estradiol and progesterone concentrations modulate whole-brain turbulent dynamics in long distances. In contrast, we reported no significant differences in information processing measures between the active and placebo phases in the hormonal contraceptive study. Overall, the results demonstrate that the turbulence framework is able to capture differences in whole-brain turbulent dynamics related to ovarian hormones and menstrual cycle stages.

Dynamic community detection reveals transient reorganization of functional brain networks across a female menstrual cycle.

Sex steroid hormones have been shown to alter regional brain activity, but the extent to which they modulate connectivity within and between large-scale functional brain networks over time has yet to be characterized. Here, we applied dynamic community detection techniques to data from a highly sampled female with 30 consecutive days of brain imaging and venipuncture measurements to characterize changes in resting-state community structure across the menstrual cycle. Four stable functional communities were identified, consisting of nodes from visual, default mode, frontal control, and somatomotor networks. Limbic, subcortical, and attention networks exhibited higher than expected levels of nodal flexibility, a hallmark of between-network integration and transient functional reorganization. The most striking reorganization occurred in a default mode subnetwork localized to regions of the prefrontal cortex, coincident with peaks in serum levels of estradiol, luteinizing hormone, and follicle stimulating hormone. Nodes from these regions exhibited strong intranetwork increases in functional connectivity, leading to a split in the stable default mode core community and the transient formation of a new functional community. Probing the spatiotemporal basis of human brain-hormone interactions with dynamic community detection suggests that hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle result in temporary, localized patterns of brain network reorganization.

Sensory Processing Sensitivity Predicts Individual Differences in Resting-State Functional Connectivity Associated with Depth of Processing.

BACKGROUND: Sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) is a biologically based temperament trait associated with enhanced awareness and responsivity to environmental and social stimuli. Individuals with high SPS are more affected by their environments, which may result in overarousal, cognitive depletion, and fatigue. METHOD: We examined individual differences in resting-state (rs) brain connectivity (using functional MRI) as a function of SPS among a group of adults (M age = 66.13 ± 11.44 years) immediately after they completed a social affective "empathy" task. SPS was measured with the Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) Scale and correlated with rs brain connectivity. RESULTS: Results showed enhanced rs brain connectivity within the ventral attention, dorsal attention, and limbic networks as a function of greater SPS. Region of interest analyses showed increased rs brain connectivity between the hippocampus and the precuneus (implicated in episodic memory); while weaker connectivity was shown between the amygdala and the periaqueductal gray (important for anxiety), and the hippocampus and insula (implicated in habitual cognitive processing). CONCLUSIONS: The present study showed that SPS is associated with rs brain connectivity implicated in attentional control, consolidation of memory, physiological homeostasis, and deliberative cognition. These results support theories proposing "depth of processing" as a central feature of SPS and highlight the neural processes underlying this cardinal feature of the trait.

Applying dense-sampling methods to reveal dynamic endocrine modulation of the nervous system.

The brain is an endocrine organ whose day-to-day function is tied to the rhythmic production of neuromodulatory hormones. Yet, traditional approaches to studying brain-hormone relationships in humans are often coarse in scope. By contrast, dense-sampling neuroimaging offers the unique ability to probe dynamic interactions between the nervous and endocrine systems. This review summarizes recent evidence of sex hormones' influence on structural and functional properties of the human brain. In particular, findings from the '28andMe' project suggest that estradiol modulates the topology of large-scale functional brain networks and progesterone rapidly shapes medial temporal lobe morphology across the menstrual cycle. This nascent body of work sets the stage for additional studies in larger cohorts. We end by discussing the potential of dense-sampling designs to further elucidate endocrine modulation of the brain, with implications for personalized medicine.

Cerebellar network organization across the human menstrual cycle.

The cerebellum contains the vast majority of neurons in the brain and houses distinct functional networks that constitute at least two homotopic maps of cerebral networks. It is also a major site of sex steroid hormone action. While the functional organization of the human cerebellum has been characterized, the influence of sex steroid hormones on intrinsic cerebellar network dynamics has yet to be established. Here we investigated the extent to which endogenous fluctuations in estradiol and progesterone alter functional cerebellar networks at rest in a woman densely sampled over a complete menstrual cycle (30 consecutive days). Edgewise regression analysis revealed robust negative associations between progesterone and cerebellar coherence. Graph theory metrics probed sex hormones' influence on topological brain states, revealing relationships between sex hormones and within-network integration in Ventral Attention, Dorsal Attention, and SomatoMotor Networks. Together these results suggest that the intrinsic dynamics of the cerebellum are intimately tied to day-by-day changes in sex hormones.

Progesterone shapes medial temporal lobe volume across the human menstrual cycle.

The rhythmic production of sex steroid hormones is a central feature of the mammalian endocrine system. In rodents and nonhuman primates, sex hormones are powerful regulators of hippocampal subfield morphology. However, it remains unknown whether intrinsic fluctuations in sex hormones alter hippocampal morphology in the human brain. In a series of dense-sampling studies, we used high-resolution imaging of the medial temporal lobe (MTL) to determine whether endogenous fluctuations (Study 1) and exogenous manipulation (Study 2) of sex hormones alter MTL volume over time. Across the menstrual cycle, intrinsic fluctuations in progesterone were associated with volumetric changes in CA2/3, entorhinal, perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortex. Chronic progesterone suppression abolished these cycle-dependent effects and led to pronounced volumetric changes in entorhinal cortex and CA2/3 relative to freely cycling conditions. No associations with estradiol were observed. These results establish progesterone's ability to rapidly and dynamically shape MTL morphology across the human menstrual cycle.

Functional reorganization of brain networks across the human menstrual cycle.

The brain is an endocrine organ, sensitive to the rhythmic changes in sex hormone production that occurs in most mammalian species. In rodents and nonhuman primates, estrogen and progesterone's impact on the brain is evident across a range of spatiotemporal scales. Yet, the influence of sex hormones on the functional architecture of the human brain is largely unknown. In this dense-sampling, deep phenotyping study, we examine the extent to which endogenous fluctuations in sex hormones alter intrinsic brain networks at rest in a woman who underwent brain imaging and venipuncture for 30 consecutive days. Standardized regression analyses illustrate estrogen and progesterone's widespread associations with functional connectivity. Time-lagged analyses examined the temporal directionality of these relationships and suggest that cortical network dynamics (particularly in the Default Mode and Dorsal Attention Networks, whose hubs are densely populated with estrogen receptors) are preceded-and perhaps driven-by hormonal fluctuations. A similar pattern of associations was observed in a follow-up study one year later. Together, these results reveal the rhythmic nature in which brain networks reorganize across the human menstrual cycle. Neuroimaging studies that densely sample the individual connectome have begun to transform our understanding of the brain's functional organization. As these results indicate, taking endocrine factors into account is critical for fully understanding the intrinsic dynamics of the human brain.

Recording brain activity can function as an implied social presence and alter neural connectivity.

People often behave differently when they know they are being watched. Here, we report the first investigation of whether such social presence effects also include brain monitoring technology, and also their impacts on the measured neural activity. We demonstrate that merely informing participants that fMRI has the potential to observe (thought-related) brain activity is sufficient to trigger changes in functional connectivity within and between relevant brain networks that have been previously associated selectively with executive and attentional control as well as self-relevant processing, social cognition, and theory of mind. These results demonstrate that an implied social presence, mediated here by recording brain activity with fMRI, can alter brain functional connectivity. These data provide a new manipulation of social attention, as well as shining light on a methodological hazard for researchers using equipment to monitor brain activity.

Failure to Affect Decision Criteria During Recognition Memory With Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation.

A decision criterion establishes the minimum amount of memory evidence required for recognition. When a liberal criterion is set, items are recognized based on weak evidence whereas a conservative criterion requires greater memory strength for recognition. The decision criterion is a fundamental aspect of recognition memory but little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms of maintaining a criterion. We used continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS) with the goal of inhibiting prefrontal cortex excitability while participants performed recognition tests. We hypothesized that inhibiting the right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG), right middle frontal gyrus (rMFG), and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC) would cause participants to establish less conservative decision criteria without affecting recognition memory performance. Participants initially performed recognition memory tests while maintaining conservative decision criteria during fMRI scanning. Peak activity in the successful retrieval effect contrast (Hits > Correct Rejections) provided subject-specific cTBS target sites. During three separate sessions, participants completed the same recognition memory paradigm while maintaining conservative and liberal decision criteria both before and after cTBS. Across two experiments we failed to significantly alter decision criteria placement by applying cTBS to the rIFG, rMFG, and rDLPFC despite efforts to precisely target individualized brain areas. However, we unexpectedly improved discriminability following cTBS to the rDLPFC specifically when participants maintained a liberal criterion. Although this finding may guide future studies investigating the neural mechanisms underlying discriminability in recognition memory, cTBS proved ineffective at altering decision criteria.