Functional gradients reveal cortical hierarchy changes in multiple sclerosis.

Functional gradient (FG) analysis represents an increasingly popular methodological perspective for investigating brain hierarchical organization but whether and how network hierarchy changes concomitant with functional connectivity alterations in multiple sclerosis (MS) has remained elusive. Here, we analyzed FG components to uncover possible alterations in cortical hierarchy using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) data acquired in 122 MS patients and 97 healthy control (HC) subjects. Cortical hierarchy was assessed by deriving regional FG scores from rs-fMRI connectivity matrices using a functional parcellation of the cerebral cortex. The FG analysis identified a primary (visual-to-sensorimotor) and a secondary (sensory-to-transmodal) component. Results showed a significant alteration in cortical hierarchy as indexed by regional changes in FG scores in MS patients within the sensorimotor network and a compression (i.e., a reduced standard deviation across all cortical parcels) of the sensory-transmodal gradient axis, suggesting disrupted segregation between sensory and cognitive processing. Moreover, FG scores within limbic and default mode networks were significantly correlated ( ρ = 0.30 $$ \rho =0.30 $$ , p < .005 after Bonferroni correction for both) with the symbol digit modality test (SDMT) score, a measure of information processing speed commonly used in MS neuropsychological assessments. Finally, leveraging supervised machine learning, we tested the predictive value of network-level FG features, highlighting the prominent role of the FG scores within the default mode network in the accurate prediction of SDMT scores in MS patients (average mean absolute error of 1.22 ± 0.07 points on a hold-out set of 24 patients). Our work provides a comprehensive evaluation of FG alterations in MS, shedding light on the hierarchical organization of the MS brain and suggesting that FG connectivity analysis can be regarded as a valuable approach in rs-fMRI studies across different MS populations.

Altered domain-specific striatal functional connectivity in patients with Parkinson's disease and urinary symptoms.

BACKGROUND: In this study, we aimed at investigating the possible association of urinary symptoms with whole-brain MRI resting-state functional connectivity (FC) alterations from distinct striatal subregions in a large cohort of early PD patients. METHODS: Seventy-nine drug-naive PD patients (45 PD-urinary+/34 PD-urinary-) and 38 healthy controls (HCs) were consecutively enrolled. Presence/absence of urinary symptoms were assessed by means of the Nonmotor Symptom Scale - domain 7. Using an a priori connectivity-based domain-specific parcellation, we defined three ROIs (per each hemisphere) for different striatal functional subregions (sensorimotor, limbic and cognitive) from which seed-based FC voxel-wise analyses were conducted over the whole brain. RESULTS: Compared to PD-urinary-, PD-urinary+ patients showed increased FC between striatal regions and motor and premotor/supplementary motor areas as well as insula/anterior dorsolateral PFC. Compared to HC, PD-urinary+ patients presented decreased FC between striatal regions and parietal, insular and cingulate cortices. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings revealed a specific pattern of striatal FC alteration in PD patients with urinary symptoms, potentially associated to altered stimuli perception and sensorimotor integration even in the early stages. These results may potentially help clinicians to design more effective and tailored rehabilitation and neuromodulation protocols for PD patients.

Subacute changes in brain functional network connectivity after nocturnal sodium oxybate intake are associated with anterior cingulate GABA.

Sodium oxybate (γ-hydroxybutyrate, GHB) is an endogenous GHB/GABAB receptor agonist, clinically used to promote slow-wave sleep and reduce next-day sleepiness in disorders such as narcolepsy and fibromyalgia. The neurobiological signature of these unique therapeutic effects remains elusive. Promising current neuropsychopharmacological approaches to understand the neural underpinnings of specific drug effects address cerebral resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) patterns and neurometabolic alterations. Hence, we performed a placebo-controlled, double-blind, randomized, cross-over pharmacological magnetic resonance imaging study with a nocturnal administration of GHB, combined with magnetic resonance spectroscopy of GABA and glutamate in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). In sum, 16 healthy male volunteers received 50 mg/kg GHB p.o. or placebo at 02:30 a.m. to maximize deep sleep enhancement and multi-modal brain imaging was performed at 09:00 a.m. of the following morning. Independent component analysis of whole-brain rsFC revealed a significant increase of rsFC between the salience network (SN) and the right central executive network (rCEN) after GHB intake compared with placebo. This SN-rCEN coupling was significantly associated with changes in GABA levels in the ACC (pall < 0.05). The observed neural pattern is compatible with a functional switch to a more extrinsic brain state, which may serve as a neurobiological signature of the wake-promoting effects of GHB.

The impact of emotional valence and stimulus habituation on fMRI signal reliability during emotion generation.

BACKGROUND: The emotional domain is often impaired across many neurological diseases, for this reason it represents a relevant target of rehabilitation interventions. Functional changes in neural activity related to treatment can be assessed with functional MRI (fMRI) using emotion-generation tasks in longitudinal settings. Previous studies demonstrated that within-subject fMRI signal reliability can be affected by several factors such as repetition suppression, type of task and brain anatomy. However, the differential role of repetition suppression and emotional valence of the stimuli on the fMRI signal reliability and reproducibility during an emotion-generation task involving the vision of emotional pictures is yet to be determined. METHODS: Sixty-two healthy subjects were enrolled and split into two groups: group A (21 subjects, test-retest reliability on same-day and with same-task-form), group B (30 subjects, test-retest reproducibility with 4-month-interval using two equivalent-parallel forms of the task). Test-retest reliability and reproducibility of fMRI responses and patterns were evaluated separately for positive and negative emotional valence conditions in both groups. The analyses were performed voxel-wise, using the general linear model (GLM), and via a region-of-interest (ROI)-based approach, by computing the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) on the obtained contrasts. RESULTS: The voxel-wise GLM test yielded no significant differences for both conditions in reliability and reproducibility analyses. As to the ROI-based approach, across all areas with significant main effects of the stimuli, the reliability, as measured with ICC, was poor (<0.4) for the positive condition and ranged from poor to excellent (0.4-0.75) for the negative condition. The ICC-based reproducibility analysis, related to the comparison of two different parallel forms, yielded similar results. DISCUSSION: The voxel-wise GLM analysis failed to capture the poor reliability of fMRI signal which was instead highlighted using the ROI-based ICC analysis. The latter showed higher signal reliability for negative valence stimuli with respect to positive ones. The implementation of two parallel forms allowed to exclude neural suppression as the predominant effect causing low signal reliability, which could be instead ascribed to the employment of different neural strategies to cope with emotional stimuli over time. This is an invaluable information for a better assessment of treatment and rehabilitation effects in longitudinal studies of emotional neural processing.

Memory Phenotypes In Early, De Novo Parkinson's Disease Patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment.

BACKGROUND: Memory deficits in mild cognitive impairment related to Parkinson's disease (PD-MCI) are quite heterogeneous, and there is no general agreement on their genesis. OBJECTIVES: To define memory phenotypes in de novo PD-MCI and their associations with motor and non-motor features and patients' quality of life. METHODS: From a sample of 183 early de novo patients with PD, cluster analysis was applied to neuropsychological measures of memory function of 82 patients with PD-MCI (44.8%). The remaining patients free of cognitive impairment were considered as a comparison group (n = 101). Cognitive measures and structural magnetic resonance imaging-based neural correlates of memory function were used to substantiate the results. RESULTS: A three-cluster model produced the best solution. Cluster A (65.85%) included memory unimpaired patients; Cluster B (23.17%) included patients with mild episodic memory disorder related to a "prefrontal executive-dependent phenotype"; Cluster C (10.97%) included patients with severe episodic memory disorder related to a "hybrid phenotype," where hippocampal-dependent deficits co-occurred with prefrontal executive-dependent memory dysfunctions. Cognitive and brain structural imaging correlates substantiated the findings. The three phenotypes did not differ in terms of motor and non-motor features, but the attention/executive deficits progressively increased from Cluster A, through Cluster B, to Cluster C. This last cluster had worse quality of life compared to others. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated the memory heterogeneity of de novo PD-MCI, suggesting existence of three distinct memory-related phenotypes. Identification of such phenotypes can be fruitful in understanding the pathophysiological mechanisms underlying PD-MCI and its subtypes and in guiding appropriate treatments. © 2023 The Authors. Movement Disorders published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Magnetic Resonance T1w/T2w Ratio in the Putamen and Cerebellum as a Marker of Cognitive Impairment in MSA: a Longitudinal Study.

The exact pathophysiology of cognitive impairment in multiple system atrophy (MSA) is unclear. In our longitudinal study, we aimed to analyze (I) the relationships between cognitive functions and some subcortical structures, such as putamen and cerebellum assessed by voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and T1-weighted/T2-weighted (T1w/T2w) ratio, and (II) the neuroimaging predictors of the progression of cognitive deficits. Twenty-six patients with MSA underwent a comprehensive neuropsychological battery, motor examination, and brain MRI at baseline (T0) and 1-year follow-up (T1). Patients were then divided according to cognitive status into MSA with normal cognition (MSA-NC) and MSA with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). At T1, we divided the sample according to worsening/non worsening of cognitive status compared to baseline evaluation. Logistic regression analysis showed that age (ß = - 9.45, p = .02) and T1w/T2w value in the left putamen (ß = 230.64, p = .01) were significant predictors of global cognitive status at T0, explaining 65% of the variance. Logistic regression analysis showed that ∆-values of WM density in the cerebellum/brainstem (ß = 2188.70, p = .02) significantly predicted cognitive worsening at T1, explaining 64% of the variance. Our results suggest a role for the putamen and cerebellum in the cognitive changes of MSA, probably due to their connections with the cortex. The putaminal T1w/T2w ratio may deserve further studies as a marker of cognitive impairment in MSA.

Resting-state network connectivity changes in drug-naive Parkinson's disease patients with probable REM sleep behavior disorder.

Epidemiological studies have shown that Parkinson's disease (PD) patients with probable REM sleep behavior disorder (pRBD) present an increased risk of worse cognitive progression over the disease course. The aim of this study was to investigate, using resting-state functional MRI (RS-fMRI), the functional connectivity (FC) changes associated with the presence of pRBD in a cohort of newly diagnosed, drug-naive and cognitively unimpaired PD patients compared to healthy controls (HC). Fifty-six drug-naïve patients (25 PD-pRBD+ and 31 PD-pRBD-) and 23 HC underwent both RS-fMRI and clinical assessment. Single-subject and group-level independent component analysis was used to analyze intra- and inter-network FC differences within the major large-scale neurocognitive networks, namely the default mode (DMN), frontoparietal (FPN), salience (SN) and executive-control (ECN) networks. Widespread FC changes were found within the most relevant neurocognitive networks in PD patients compared to HC. Moreover, PD-pRBD+ patients showed abnormal intrinsic FC within the DMN, ECN and SN compared to PD-pRBD-. Finally, PD-pRBD+ patients showed functional decoupling between left and right FPN. In the present study, we revealed that FC changes within the most relevant neurocognitive networks are already detectable in early drug-naïve PD patients, even in the absence of clinical overt cognitive impairment. These changes are even more evident in PD patients with RBD, potentially leading to profound impairment in cognitive processing and cognitive/behavioral integration, as well as to fronto-striatal maladaptive compensatory mechanisms.

Frequency and imaging correlates of neuropsychiatric symptoms in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms are intrinsic to Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) and a spoonful of studies investigated their imaging correlates. Describe (I) the frequency and severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms in PSP and (II) their structural imaging correlates. Twenty-six PSP patients underwent Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI) and brain 3D T1-weighted MRI. Spearman's rho with Bonferroni correction was used to investigate correlations between NPI scores and volumes of gray matter regions. More than 80% of patients presented at least one behavioral symptom of any severity. The most frequent and severe were depression/dysphoria, apathy, and irritability/lability. Significant relationships were found between the severity of irritability and right pars opercularis volume (p < 0.001) as well as between the frequency of agitation/aggression and left lateral occipital volume (p < 0.001). Depression, apathy, and irritability are the most common neuropsychiatric symptoms in PSP. Moreover, we found a relationship between specific positive symptoms as irritability and agitation/aggression and greater volume of the right pars opercularis cortex and lower volume of the left occipital cortex, respectively, which deserve further investigations.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with cortical thinning in people with eating disorders.

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a non-specific risk factor for eating disorders (ED) and is associated with a greater severity in their clinical presentation and poorer treatment outcome. These data suggest that maltreated people with ED may be biologically other than clinically different from non-maltreated people. The aim of the present study was to investigate cortical thickness (CT), a possible biomarker of neurodevelopment, in people with ED with or without history of CM and in healthy women. Twenty-four healthy women, 26 with anorexia nervosa and 24 with bulimia nervosa underwent a 3T MRI scan. All participants filled in the childhood trauma questionnaire. All neuroimaging data were processed by FreeSurfer. Twenty-four participants with ED were identified as maltreated and 26 participants with ED as non-maltreated. All healthy women were non-maltreated. Compared to healthy women, maltreated people with ED showed lower CT in the left rostral anterior cingulate gyrus, while compared to people with ED without history of CM showed lower CT values in the left superior frontal and in right caudal middle frontal and superior parietal gyri. No significant differences emerged in CT measures between healthy women and people with ED without history of CM. The present findings show for the first time that in adult people with ED childhood maltreatment is associated with cortical thinning in areas implicated in the modulation of brain processes that are acknowledged to play a role in the psychopathology of ED.

Olfactory Loss and Brain Connectivity after COVID-19: Structural Follow-Up at One Year.

The structural connectivity from the primary olfactory cortex to the main secondary olfactory areas was previously reported as relatively increased in the medial orbitofrontal cortex in a cohort of 27 recently SARS-CoV-2-infected (COV+) subjects, of which 23/27 had clinically confirmed olfactory loss, compared to 18 control (COV-) normosmic subjects, who were not previously infected. To complement this finding, here we report the outcome of an identical high angular resolution diffusion MRI analysis on follow-up data sets collected in 18/27 COV+ subjects (10 males, mean age ± SD: 38.7 ± 8.1 years) and 10/18 COV- subjects (5 males, mean age ± SD: 33.1 ± 3.6 years) from the previous samples who repeated both the olfactory functional assessment and the MRI examination after ~1 year. By comparing the newly derived subgroups, we observed that the increase in the structural connectivity index of the medial orbitofrontal cortex was not significant at follow-up, despite 10/18 COV+ subjects were still found hyposmic after ~1 year from SARS-CoV-2 infection. We concluded that the relative hyperconnectivity of the olfactory cortex to the medial orbitofrontal cortex could be, at least in some cases, an acute or reversible phenomenon linked to the recent SARS-CoV-2 infection with associated olfactory loss.

Iron and Ferroptosis More than a Suspect: Beyond the Most Common Mechanisms of Neurodegeneration for New Therapeutic Approaches to Cognitive Decline and Dementia.

Neurodegeneration is a multifactorial process that involves multiple mechanisms. Examples of neurodegenerative diseases are Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, prion diseases such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. These are progressive and irreversible pathologies, characterized by neuron vulnerability, loss of structure or function of neurons, and even neuron demise in the brain, leading to clinical, functional, and cognitive dysfunction and movement disorders. However, iron overload can cause neurodegeneration. Dysregulation of iron metabolism associated with cellular damage and oxidative stress is reported as a common event in several neurodegenerative diseases. Uncontrolled oxidation of membrane fatty acids triggers a programmed cell death involving iron, ROS, and ferroptosis, promoting cell death. In Alzheimer's disease, the iron content in the brain is significantly increased in vulnerable regions, resulting in a lack of antioxidant defenses and mitochondrial alterations. Iron interacts with glucose metabolism reciprocally. Overall, iron metabolism and accumulation and ferroptosis play a significant role, particularly in the context of diabetes-induced cognitive decline. Iron chelators improve cognitive performance, meaning that brain iron metabolism control reduces neuronal ferroptosis, promising a novel therapeutic approach to cognitive impairment.

Arterial spin labeling MRI applied to migraine: current insights and future perspectives.

INTRODUCTION: Advanced neuroimaging techniques have extensively contributed to elucidate the complex mechanisms underpinning the pathophysiology of migraine, a neurovascular disorder characterized by episodes of headache associated with a constellation of non-pain symptoms. The present manuscript, summarizing the most recent progresses of the arterial spin labelling (ASL) MRI techniques and the most significant findings from ASL studies conducted in migraine, is aimed to clarify how ASL investigations are contributing to the evolving insight on migraine pathophysiology and their putative role in migraine clinical setting. ASL techniques, allowing to quantitatively demonstrate changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF) both during the attacks and in the course of interictal period, could represent the melting point between advanced neuroimaging investigations, conducted with pure scientific purposes, and conventional neuroimaging approaches, employed in the diagnostic decision-making processes. MAIN BODY: Converging ASL evidences have demonstrated that abnormal CBF, exceeding the boundaries of a single vascular territory, with biphasic trend dominated by an initial hypoperfusion (during the aura phenomenon but also in the first part of the headache phase) followed by hyperperfusion, characterizes migraine with aura attack and can represent a valuable clinical tool in the differential diagnosis from acute ischemic strokes and epileptic seizures. Studies conducted during migraine without aura attacks are converging to highlight the involvement of dorsolateral pons and hypothalamus in migraine pathophysiology, albeit not able to disentangle their role as "migraine generators" from mere attack epiphenomenon. Furthermore, ASL findings tend to support the presence of perfusion abnormalities in brain regions known to be involved in aura ignition and propagation as well as in areas involved in multisensory processing, in both patients with migraine with aura and migraine without aura. CONCLUSION: Although ASL studies have dramatically clarified quality and timing of perfusion abnormalities during migraine with aura attacks, the same cannot be said for perfusion changes during migraine attacks without aura and interictal periods. Future studies with more rigorous methodological approaches in terms of study protocol, ASL technique and sample selection and size are mandatory to exploit the possibility of better understanding migraine pathophysiology and identifying neuroimaging biomarkers of each migraine phase in different migraine phenotypes.

Olfactory loss and brain connectivity after COVID-19.

To address the impact of COVID-19 olfactory loss on the brain, we analyzed the neural connectivity of the central olfactory system in recently SARS-CoV-2 infected subjects with persisting olfactory impairment (hyposmia). Twenty-seven previously SARS-CoV-2 infected subjects (10 males, mean age ± SD 40.0 ± 7.6 years) with clinically confirmed COVID-19 related hyposmia, and eighteen healthy, never SARS-CoV-2 infected, normosmic subjects (6 males, mean age ± SD 36.0 ± 7.1 years), were recruited in a 3 Tesla MRI study including high angular resolution diffusion and resting-state functional MRI acquisitions. Specialized metrics of structural and functional connectivity were derived from a standard parcellation of olfactory brain areas and a previously validated graph-theoretic model of the human olfactory functional network. These metrics were compared between groups and correlated to a clinical index of olfactory impairment. On the scanning day, all subjects were virus-free and cognitively unimpaired. Compared to control, both structural and functional connectivity metrics were found significantly increased in previously SARS-CoV-2 infected subjects. Greater residual olfactory impairment was associated with more segregated processing within regions more functionally connected to the anterior piriform cortex. An increased neural connectivity within the olfactory cortex was associated with a recent SARS-CoV-2 infection when the olfactory loss was a residual COVID-19 symptom. The functional connectivity of the anterior piriform cortex, the largest cortical recipient of afferent fibers from the olfactory bulb, accounted for the inter-individual variability in the sensory impairment. Albeit preliminary, these findings could feature a characteristic brain connectivity response in the presence of COVID-19 related residual hyposmia.

Sex differences in the taste-evoked functional connectivity network.

The central gustatory pathway encompasses multiple subcortical and cortical regions whose neural functional connectivity can be modulated by taste stimulation. While gustatory perception has been previously linked to sex, whether and how the gustatory network differently responds to basic tastes between men and women is unclear. Here, we defined the regions of the central gustatory network by a meta-analysis of 35 fMRI taste activation studies and then analyzed the taste-evoked functional connectivity between these regions in 44 subjects (19 women) in a separate 3 Tesla activation study where sweet and bitter solutions, at five concentrations each, were administered during scanning. From the meta-analysis, a network model was set up, including bilateral anterior, middle and inferior insula, thalamus, precentral gyrus, left amygdala, caudate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Higher functional connectivity than in women was observed in men between the right middle insula and bilateral thalami for bitter taste. Men exhibited higher connectivity than women at low bitter concentrations and middle-high sweet concentrations between bilateral thalamus and insula. A graph-based analysis expressed similar results in terms of nodal characteristics of strength and centrality. Our findings add new insights into the mechanisms of taste processing by highlighting sex differences in the functional connectivity of the gustatory network as modulated by the perception of sweet and bitter tastes. These results shed more light on the neural origin of sex-related differences in gustatory perception and may guide future research on the pathophysiology of taste perception in humans.

Impaired glutamate homeostasis in the nucleus accumbens in human cocaine addiction.

Cocaine addiction is characterized by overwhelming craving for the substance, which drives its escalating use despite adverse consequences. Animal models suggest a disrupted glutamate homeostasis in the nucleus accumbens to underlie addiction-like behavior. After chronic administration of cocaine, rodents show decreased levels of accumbal glutamate, whereas drug-seeking reinstatement is associated with enhanced glutamatergic transmission. However, due to technical obstacles, the role of disturbed glutamate homeostasis for cocaine addiction in humans remains only partially understood, and accordingly, no approved pharmacotherapy exists. Here, we applied a tailored proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy protocol that allows glutamate quantification within the human nucleus accumbens. We found significantly reduced basal glutamate concentrations in the nucleus accumbens in cocaine-addicted (N = 26) compared with healthy individuals (N = 30), and increased glutamate levels during cue-induced craving in cocaine-addicted individuals compared with baseline. These glutamatergic alterations, however, could not be significantly modulated by a short-term challenge of N-acetylcysteine (2400 mg/day on 2 days). Taken together, our findings reveal a disturbed accumbal glutamate homeostasis as a key neurometabolic feature of cocaine addiction also in humans. Therefore, we suggest the glutamatergic system as a promising target for the development of novel pharmacotherapies, and in addition, as a potential biomarker for a personalized medicine approach in addiction.

Functional connectivity changes in complex migraine aura: beyond the visual network.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Although the majority of migraine with aura (MwA) patients experience simple visual aura, a discrete percentage also report somatosensory, dysphasic or motor symptoms (the so-called complex auras). The wide aura clinical spectrum led to an investigation of whether the heterogeneity of the aura phenomenon could be produced by different neural correlates, suggesting an increased visual cortical excitability in complex MwA. The aim was to explore whether complex MwA patients are characterized by more pronounced connectivity changes of the visual network and whether functional abnormalities may extend beyond the visual network encompassing also the sensorimotor network in complex MwA patients compared to simple visual MwA patients. METHODS: By using a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging approach, the resting-state functional connectivity (RS-Fc) of both visual and sensorimotor networks in 20 complex MwA patients was compared with 20 simple visual MwA patients and 20 migraine without aura patients. RESULTS: Complex MwA patients showed a significantly higher RS-Fc of the left lingual gyrus, within the visual network, and of the right anterior insula, within the sensorimotor network, compared to both simple visual MwA and migraine without aura patients (p < 0.001). The abnormal right anterior insula RS-Fc was able to discriminate complex MwA patients from simple aura MwA patients as demonstrated by logistic regression analysis (area under the curve 0.83). CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that higher extrastriate RS-Fc might promote cortical spreading depression onset representing the neural correlate of simple visual aura that can propagate to sensorimotor regions if an increased insula RS-Fc coexists, leading to complex aura phenotypes.

Uncovering clinical and radiological asymmetry in progressive supranuclear palsy-Richardson's syndrome.

BACKGROUND: Richardson's syndrome (RS) is considered the most symmetric phenotype of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) as opposed to PSP with predominant corticobasal syndrome (PSP-CBS) or parkinsonism (PSP-P). OBJECTIVES: Evaluate asymmetrical motor and higher cortical features in probable PSP-RS and compare the degree of asymmetry of cortical lobes and hemispheres between PSP-RS, PSP-CBS, PSP-P, and age-matched healthy controls (HC). METHODS: Asymmetry of motor and higher cortical features evaluated with an extensive videotaped neurologic examination was investigated in 28 PSP-RS, 8 PSP-CBS, and 14 PSP-P. Brain MRI to compute the laterality index (LI) was performed in 36 patients as well as in 56 HC. RESULTS: In PSP-RS, parkinsonism was the most common asymmetric motor feature (53.6%), followed by dystonia and myoclonus (21.4% and 17.9%, respectively). Among higher cortical features, limb apraxia was found asymmetric in about one-third of patients. PSP-RS disclosed higher LI for hemispheres compared to HC, indicating a greater degree of asymmetry (p = 0.003). The degree of asymmetry of clinical features was not different between PSP-RS and those qualifying for PSP-CBS or PSP-P. As for imaging, LI was not different between PSP-RS, PSP-CBS, and PSP-P in any cortical region. CONCLUSIONS: Motor and higher cortical features are asymmetric in up to 50% of PSP-RS who also present a greater degree of asymmetry in hemispheres compared to age-matched HC. Lateralization of clinical features should be annotated in PSP.

Connectivity Correlates of Anxiety Symptoms in Drug-Naive Parkinson's Disease Patients.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety symptoms are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). A link between anxiety and cognitive impairment in PD has been demonstrated. OBJECTIVES: Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated intrinsic brain network connectivity correlates of anxiety symptoms in a cohort of drug-naive, cognitively unimpaired patients with PD. METHODS: The intrinsic functional brain connectivity of 25 drug-naive, cognitively unimpaired PD patients with anxiety, 25 without anxiety, and 20 matched healthy controls was compared. All patients underwent a detailed behavioral and neuropsychological evaluation. Anxiety presence and severity were assessed using the Parkinson's Disease Anxiety Scale. Single-subject and group-level independent component analyses were used to investigate functional connectivity differences within and between the major resting-state networks. RESULTS: Decreased connectivity within the default-mode and sensorimotor networks (SMN), increased connectivity within the executive-control network (ECN), and divergent connectivity measures within salience and frontoparietal networks (SN and FPN) were detected in PD patients with anxiety compared with those without anxiety. Moreover, patients with anxiety showed a disrupted inter-network connectivity between SN and SMN, ECN, and FPN. Anxiety severity was correlated with functional abnormalities within these networks. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrated that an abnormal intrinsic connectivity within and between the most reported large-scale networks may represent a potential neural correlate of anxiety symptoms in drug-naive PD patients even in the absence of clinically relevant cognitive impairment. We hypothesize that these specific cognitive and limbic network architecture changes may represent a potential biomarker of treatment response in clinical trials. © 2020 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Between-sex variability of resting state functional brain networks in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

The organization of brain functional connectivity (FC) has been shown to differ between sexes. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by sexual dimorphism, showing sex-specific trends in site of onset, phenotypes, and prognosis. Here, we explored resting state (RS) FC differences within major large-scale functional networks between women and men in a sample of ALS patients, in comparison to healthy controls (HCs). A group-level independent component analysis (ICA) was performed on RS-fMRI time-series enabling spatial and spectral analyses of large-scale RS FC networks in 45 patients with ALS (20 F; 25 M) and 31 HCs (15 F; 16 M) with a focus on sex-related differences. A whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was also performed to highlight atrophy differences. Between-sex comparisons showed: decreased FC in the right middle frontal gyrus and in the precuneus within the default mode network (DMN), in affected men compared to affected women; decreased FC in the right post-central gyrus (sensorimotor network), in the right inferior parietal gyrus (right fronto-parietal network) and increased FC in the anterior cingulate cortex and right insula (salience network), in both affected and non-affected men compared to women. When comparing affected men to affected women, VBM analysis revealed atrophy in men in the right lateral occipital cortex. Our results suggest that in ALS sex-related trends of brain functional and structural changes are more heavily represented in DMN and in the occipital cortex, suggesting that sex is an additional dimension of functional and structural heterogeneity in ALS.

Reconciling experimental and theoretical vibrational deactivation in low-energy O + N2 collisions.

Molecular dynamics calculations of inelastic collisions of atomic oxygen with molecular nitrogen are known to show orders of magnitude discrepancies with experimental results in the range from room temperature to many thousands of degrees Kelvin. In this work, we have achieved an unprecedented quantitative agreement with experiments even at low temperature, by including a non-adiabatic treatment involving vibronic states on newly developed potential energy surfaces. This result paves the way for the calculation of accurate and detailed databases of vibrational energy exchange rates for this collisional system. This is bound to have an impact on air plasma simulations under a wide range of conditions and on the development of Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellites, operating in the low thermosphere, objects of great technological interest due to their potential at a competitive cost.