Interactions between cigarette smoking and cognitive status on functional connectivity of the cortico-striatal circuits in individuals without dementia: A resting-state functional MRI study.

AIMS: Cigarette smoking is a modifiable risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD), and controlling risk factors may curb the progression of AD. However, the underlying neural mechanisms of the effects of smoking on cognition remain largely unclear. Therefore, we aimed to explore the interaction effects of smoking × cognitive status on cortico-striatal circuits, which play a crucial role in addiction and cognition, in individuals without dementia. METHODS: We enrolled 304 cognitively normal (CN) non-smokers, 44 CN smokers, 130 mild cognitive impairment (MCI) non-smokers, and 33 MCI smokers. The mixed-effect analysis was performed to explore the interaction effects between smoking and cognitive status (CN vs. MCI) based on functional connectivity (FC) of the striatal subregions (caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens [NAc]). RESULTS: The significant interaction effects of smoking × cognitive status on FC of the striatal subregions were detected in the left inferior parietal lobule (IPL), bilateral cuneus, and bilateral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Specifically, increased FC of right caudate to left IPL was found in CN smokers compared with non-smokers. The MCI smokers showed decreased FC of right caudate to left IPL and of right putamen to bilateral cuneus and increased FC of bilateral NAc to bilateral ACC compared with CN smokers and MCI non-smokers. Furthermore, a positive correlation between FC of the NAc to ACC with language and memory was detected in MCI smokers. CONCLUSIONS: Cigarette smoking could affect the function of cortico-striatal circuits in patients with MCI. Our findings suggest that quitting smoking in the prodromal stage of AD may have the potential to prevent disease progression.

Improving rib fracture detection accuracy and reading efficiency with deep learning-based detection software: a clinical evaluation.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the impact of deep learning (DL) on radiologists' detection accuracy and reading efficiency of rib fractures on CT. METHODS: Blunt chest trauma patients (n = 198) undergoing thin-slice CT were enrolled. Images were read by two radiologists (R1, R2) in three sessions: S1, unassisted reading; S2, assisted by DL as the concurrent reader; S3, DL as the second reader. The fractures detected by the readers and total reading time were documented. The reference standard for rib fractures was established by an expert panel. The sensitivity and false-positives per scan were calculated and compared among S1, S2, and S3. RESULTS: The reference standard identified 865 fractures on 713 ribs (102 patients) The sensitivity of S1, S2, and S3 was 82.8, 88.9, and 88.7% for R1, and 83.9, 88.7, and 88.8% for R2, respectively. The sensitivity of S2 and S3 was significantly higher compared to S1 for both readers (all p < 0.05). The sensitivity between S2 and S3 did not differ significantly (both p > 0.9). The false-positive per scan had no difference between sessions for R1 (p = 0.24) but was lower for S2 and S3 than S1 for R2 (both p < 0.05). Reading time decreased by 36% (R1) and 34% (R2) in S2 compared to S1. CONCLUSIONS: Using DL as a concurrent reader can improve the detection accuracy and reading efficiency for rib fracture. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: DL can be integrated into the radiology workflow to improve the accuracy and reading efficiency of CT rib fracture detection.

Corrigendum: Decreased modulation by the risk level on the brain activation during decision making in adolescents with internet gaming disorder.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00296.].

Corrigendum: Altered Structural Correlates of Impulsivity in Adolescents with Internet Gaming Disorder.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2016.00004.].

Corrigendum: Higher integrity of the motor and visual pathways in long-term video game players.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00098.].

Brain Structures Associated with Internet Addiction Tendency in Adolescent Online Game Players.

With the development of the Internet, an increasing number of adolescents play online game excessively, which leads to adverse effects on individuals and society. Previous studies have demonstrated altered gray-matter volume (GMV) in individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD), but the relationship between the tendency to IGD and the GMV across whole brain is still unclear in adolescents. In the present study, anatomical imaging with high resolution was performed on 67 male adolescents who played online game; and Young's Internet addiction test (IAT) was conducted to test the tendency to IGD. FMRIB Software Library (FSL) was used to calculate the voxel-based correlations between the GMV and the IAT score after controlling for the age and years of education. The GMVs of the bilateral postcentral gyri (postCG), the bilateral precentral gyri (preCG), the right precuneus, the left posterior midcingulate cortex (pMCC), the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL), and the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) were negatively correlated with the IAT score. The correlation still existed between the IAT score and the GMVs of the bilateral postCG, the left preCG, the left pMCC, and the right MFG after controlling for the total time of playing online game. When the participants were divided into two groups according to the IAT score, the GMVs of these IAT-related brain regions were lower in high IAT score subgroup (IAT score >50) than in low IAT score subgroup (IAT score ≤50). Our results suggested that the GMVs of brain regions involved in sensorimotor process and cognitive control were associated with the IGD tendency. These findings may lead to new targets for preventing and treating the IGD.

Diffusion tensor imaging of the structural integrity of white matter correlates with impulsivity in adolescents with internet gaming disorder.

INTRODUCTION: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is usually defined as the inability of an individual to control internet gaming resulting in serious negative consequences, and trait impulsivity has been viewed as a hallmark feature of IGD. Recent studies have suggested that the structural integrity of the white matter (WM) plays an important role in the neuromediation of an individual's impulsivity. However, no study has examined the association between WM integrity and impulsivity in IGD adolescents. METHODS: In this study, 33 adolescents with IGD and 32 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited, and the intergroup differences in the relationships between impulsivity and fractional anisotropy (FA) values across the whole brain WM were investigated using voxel-wise correlation analyses. RESULTS: Our results revealed significant intergroup differences in the correlations between impulsivity and the FA values of the right corticospinal tract (CST) and the right occipital WM. Region of interest-based tests revealed that the FA values of these clusters were positive or insignificantly correlated with impulsivity in the IGD adolescents contrasted to the significantly negative correlation in the HCs. CONCLUSIONS: This altered correlations in the IGD adolescents might reflect potential WM microstructural changes which may be associated with the greater impulsivity of IGD adolescents and provide possible therapeutic targets for interventions in this population.

Compensatory increase of functional connectivity density in adolescents with internet gaming disorder.

Behavioral studies have demonstrated visual attention bias and working memory deficits in individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD). Neuroimaging studies demonstrated that individuals with IGD presented abnormalities in brain structures and functions including resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) disturbance. However, most previous studies investigated IGD-related rsFC alterations by using hypothesis-driven methods with priori selection of a region of interest, which cannot provide a full picture of the rsFC changes in IGD individuals. In this study, we recruited 27 male IGD adolescents and 35 demographically matched healthy controls (HCs) to investigate abnormal connective property of each voxel within whole brain of IGD adolescents using resting-state functional connectivity density (rsFCD) method, and further to evaluate the relationship between altered rsFCD and behavioral performances of visual attention and working memory. The results exhibited no significant intergroup difference in behavioral performance (visual working memory and attention). The IGD adolescents exhibited higher global/long-range rsFCD in the bilateral dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and the right inferior temporal cortex (ITC)/fusiform compared with the HCs. Although no significant correlation survived after Bonferroni correction, higher global/long-range rsFCD of the bilateral DLPFC was correlated with the Young's internet addiction test (IAT) score and/or behavioral performance in IGD adolescents using an uncorrected threshold of P < 0.05. In conclusion, IGD adolescents demonstrated increased rsFCD in the brain regions involved in working memory, spatial orientation and attention processing, which indicated that increased rsFCD may reflect a compensatory mechanism for maintaining the normal behavioral performance in IGD adolescents compared with the HCs.

Effects of outcome on the covariance between risk level and brain activity in adolescents with internet gaming disorder.

Individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) often have impaired risky decision-making abilities, and IGD-related functional changes have been observed during neuroimaging studies of decision-making tasks. However, it is still unclear how feedback (outcomes of decision-making) affects the subsequent risky decision-making in individuals with IGD. In this study, twenty-four adolescents with IGD and 24 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing the balloon analog risk task (BART) to evaluate the effects of prior outcomes on brain activity during subsequent risky decision-making in adolescents with IGD. The covariance between risk level and activation of the bilateral ventral medial prefrontal cortex, left inferior frontal cortex, right ventral striatum (VS), left hippocampus/parahippocampus, right inferior occipital gyrus/fusiform gyrus and right inferior temporal gyrus demonstrated interaction effects of group by outcome (P < 0.05, AlphaSim correction). The regions with interactive effects were defined as ROI, and ROI-based intergroup comparisons showed that the covariance between risk level and brain activation was significantly greater in adolescents with IGD compared with HCs after a negative outcome occurred (P < 0.05). Our results indicated that negative outcomes affected the covariance between risk level and activation of the brain regions related to value estimation (prefrontal cortex), anticipation of rewards (VS), and emotional-related learning (hippocampus/parahippocampus), which may be one of the underlying neural mechanisms of disadvantageous risky decision-making in adolescents with IGD.

Altered Structural Correlates of Impulsivity in Adolescents with Internet Gaming Disorder.

Recent studies suggested that internet gaming disorder (IGD) was associated with impulsivity and structural abnormalities in brain gray matter (GM). However, no morphometric study has examined the association between GM and impulsivity in IGD individuals. In this study, 25 adolescents with IGD and 27 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited, and the relationship between Barratt impulsiveness scale-11 (BIS) score and gray matter volume (GMV) was investigated with the voxel-based morphometric (VBM) correlation analysis. Then, the intergroup differences in correlation between BIS score and GMV were tested across all GM voxels. Our results showed that the correlations between BIS score and GMV of the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), the bilateral insula and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the right amygdala and the left fusiform gyrus decreased in the IGD group compared to the HCs. Region-of-interest (ROI) analysis revealed that GMV in all these clusters showed significant positive correlations with BIS score in the HCs, while no significant correlation was found in the IGD group. Our findings demonstrated that dysfunction of these brain areas involved in the behavior inhibition, attention and emotion regulation might contribute to impulse control problems in IGD adolescents.

Decreased modulation by the risk level on the brain activation during decision making in adolescents with internet gaming disorder.

Greater impulse and risk-taking and reduced decision-making ability were reported as the main behavioral impairments in individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD), which has become a serious mental health issue worldwide. However, it is not clear to date how the risk level modulates brain activity during the decision-making process in IGD individuals. In this study, 23 adolescents with IGD and 24 healthy controls (HCs) without IGD were recruited, and the balloon analog risk task (BART) was used in a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment to evaluate the modulation of the risk level (the probability of balloon explosion) on brain activity during risky decision making in IGD adolescents. Reduced modulation of the risk level on the activation of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during the active BART was found in IGD group compared to the HCs. In the IGD group, there was a significant negative correlation between the risk-related DLPFC activation during the active BART and the Barratt impulsivity scale (BIS-11) scores, which were significantly higher in IGD group compared with the HCs. Our study demonstrated that, as a critical decision-making-related brain region, the right DLPFC is less sensitive to risk in IGD adolescents compared with the HCs, which may contribute to the higher impulsivity level in IGD adolescents.

Higher integrity of the motor and visual pathways in long-term video game players.

Long term video game players (VGPs) exhibit superior visual and motor skills compared with non-video game control subjects (NVGCs). However, the neural basis underlying the enhanced behavioral performance remains largely unknown. To clarify this issue, the present study compared the whiter matter integrity within the corticospinal tracts (CST), the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), and the inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) between the VGPs and the NVGCs using diffusion tensor imaging. Compared with the NVGCs, voxel-wise comparisons revealed significantly higher fractional anisotropy (FA) values in some regions within the left CST, left SLF, bilateral ILF, and IFOF in VGPs. Furthermore, higher FA values in the left CST at the level of cerebral peduncle predicted a faster response in visual attention tasks. These results suggest that higher white matter integrity in the motor and higher-tier visual pathways is associated with long-term video game playing, which may contribute to the understanding on how video game play influences motor and visual performance.

Effects of shRNA-Mediated SOX9 Inhibition on Cell Proliferation and Apoptosis in Human HCC Cell Line Hep3B Mediated by Ultrasound-Targeted Microbubble Destruction (UTMD).

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most aggressive tumors in humans. The survival rate of patients is still very poor as current therapies offer limited treatment efficacy. Therefore, it is necessary to explore novel and more effective strategies to treat HCC. Recently, Ultrasound-targeted microbubble destruction (UTMD) has been shown to be a better alternative to viral vectors in delivering plasmid DNA into cells. In this study, we thus first determined the effect of combining UTMD with effectene on the transfection efficiency in human Hep3B cells. Transfection rate of the [effectene + shRNA-SOX9 + UTMD] group was the highest among the five groups, and were significantly higher than that of the [effectene + shRNA-SOX9] or [shRNA-SOX9 + UTMD] groups, while there was no significant difference between [shRNA-SOX9 alone] and [shRNA-SOX9 + UTMD] groups. Expression of SOX9 mRNA and protein was the lowest in effectene + shRNA-SOX9 + UTMD group. Moreover, transfection of shRNA-SOX9 with UTMD and effectene in combination could markedly inhibit the proliferation and induced cell apoptosis of Hep3B cells. These results suggest that the efficiency of gene delivery is remarkably increased when UTMD is combined with other transfection strategies, such as effectene. In conclusion, our research demonstrates that combining conventional transfection methods with UTMD achieves better transfection efficiency and that this can provide an improved gene delivery system for gene therapy.