Test-retest reliability of neural alcohol cue-reactivity: Is there light at the end of the magnetic resonance imaging tube?

Over the last decades, the assessment of alcohol cue-reactivity gained popularity in addiction research, and efforts were undertaken to establish neural biomarkers. This attempt however depends on the reliability of cue-induced brain activation. Thus, we assessed test-retest reliability of alcohol cue-reactivity and its implications for imaging studies in addiction. We investigated test-retest reliability of alcohol cue-induced brain activation in 144 alcohol-dependent patients over 2 weeks. We computed established reliability estimates, such as intraclass correlation (ICC), Dice and Jaccard coefficients, for the three contrast conditions of interest: 'alcohol', 'neutral' and the 'alcohol versus neutral' difference contrast. We also investigated how test-retest reliability of the different contrasts affected the capacity to establishing associations with clinical data and determining effect size estimates. Whereas brain activation, indexed by the constituting contrast conditions 'alcohol' and 'neutral' separately, displayed overall moderate (ICC > 0.4) to good (ICC > 0.75) test-retest reliability in areas of the mesocorticolimbic system, the difference contrast 'alcohol versus neutral' showed poor overall reliability (ICC < 0.40), which was related to the intercorrelation between the constituting conditions. Data simulations and analyses of craving data confirmed that the low reliability of the difference contrast substantially limited the capacity to establish associations with clinical data and precisely estimate effect sizes. Future research on alcohol cue-reactivity should be cautioned by the low reliability of the common 'alcohol versus neutral' difference contrast. We propose that this limitation can be overcome by using the constituent task conditions as an individual difference measure, when intending to longitudinally monitor brain responses.

Pineal gland volume in primary insomnia and healthy controls: a magnetic resonance imaging study.

Little is known about the relation between pineal volume and insomnia. Melatonin promotes sleep processes and, administered as a drug, it is suitable to improve primary and secondary sleep disorders in humans. Recent magnetic resonance imaging studies suggest that human plasma and saliva melatonin levels are partially determined by the pineal gland volume. This study compares the pineal volume in a group of patients with primary insomnia to a group of healthy people without sleep disturbance. Pineal gland volume (PGV) was measured on the basis of high-resolution 3 Tesla MRI (T1-magnetization prepared rapid gradient echo) in 23 patients and 27 controls, matched for age, gender and educational status. Volume measurements were performed conventionally by manual delineation of the pineal borders in multi-planar reconstructed images. Pineal gland volume was significantly smaller (P < 0.001) in patients (48.9 ± 26.6 mm(3) ) than in controls (79 ± 30.2 mm(3) ). In patients PGV correlated negatively with age (r = -0.532; P = 0.026). Adjusting for the effect of age, PGV and rapid eye movement (REM) latency showed a significant positive correlation (rS  = 0.711, P < 0.001) in patients. Pineal volume appears to be reduced in patients with primary insomnia compared to healthy controls. Further studies are needed to clarify whether low pineal volume is the basis or the consequence of functional sleep changes to elucidate the molecular pathology for the pineal volume loss in primary insomnia.

Stop What You're Doing!-An fMRI Study on Comparisons of Neural Subprocesses of Response Inhibition in ADHD and Alcohol Use Disorder.

Rationale: Both attention deficit-/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are accompanied by deficits in response inhibition. Furthermore, the prevalence of comorbidity of ADHD and AUD is high. However, there is a lack of research on whether the same neuronal subprocesses of inhibition (i.e., interference inhibition, action withholding and action cancellation) exhibit deficits in both psychiatric disorders. Methods: We examined these three neural subprocesses of response inhibition in patient groups and healthy controls: non-medicated individuals with ADHD (ADHD; N = 16), recently detoxified and abstinent individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD; N = 15), and healthy controls (HC; N = 15). A hybrid response inhibition task covering interference inhibition, action withholding, and action cancellation was applied using a 3T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Results: Individuals with ADHD showed an overall stronger hypoactivation in attention related brain areas compared to AUD or HC during action withholding. Further, this hypoactivation was more accentuated during action cancellation. Individuals with AUD recruited a broader network, including the striatum, compared to HC during action withholding. During action cancellation, however, they showed hypoactivation in motor regions. Additionally, specific neural activation profiles regarding group and subprocess became apparent. Conclusions: Even though deficits in response inhibition are related to both ADHD and AUD, neural activation and recruited networks during response inhibition differ regarding both neuronal subprocesses and examined groups. While a replication of this study is needed in a larger sample, the results suggest that tasks have to be carefully selected when examining neural activation patterns of response inhibition either in research on various psychiatric disorders or transdiagnostic questions.

Microstructural analysis of pineal volume using trueFISP imaging.

AIM: To determine the spectrum of pineal microstructures (solid/cystic parts) in a large clinical population using a high-resolution 3D-T2-weighted sequence. METHODS: A total of 347 patients enrolled for cranial magnetic resonance imaging were randomly included in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from all patients. The exclusion criteria were artifacts or mass lesions prohibiting evaluation of the pineal gland in any of the sequences. True-FISP-3D-imaging (1.5-T, isotropic voxel 0.9 mm) was performed in 347 adults (55.4 ± 18.1 years). Pineal gland volume (PGV), cystic volume, and parenchyma volume (cysts excluded) were measured manually. RESULTS: Overall, 40.3% of pineal glands were cystic. The median PGV was 54.6 mm(3) (78.33 ± 89.0 mm(3)), the median cystic volume was 5.4 mm(3) (15.8 ± 37.2 mm(3)), and the median parenchyma volume was 53.6 mm(3) (71.9 ± 66.7 mm(3)). In cystic glands, the standard deviation of the PGV was substantially higher than in solid glands (98% vs 58% of the mean). PGV declined with age (r = -0.130, P = 0.016). CONCLUSION: The high interindividual volume variation is mainly related to cysts. Pineal parenchyma volume decreased slightly with age, whereas gender-related effects appear to be negligible.