Investigating grey matter volumetric trajectories through the lifespan at the individual level.

Adolescents exhibit remarkable heterogeneity in the structural architecture of brain development. However, due to limited large-scale longitudinal neuroimaging studies, existing research has largely focused on population averages, and the neurobiological basis underlying individual heterogeneity remains poorly understood. Here we identify, using the IMAGEN adolescent cohort followed up over 9 years (14-23 y), three groups of adolescents characterized by distinct developmental patterns of whole-brain gray matter volume (GMV). Group 1 show continuously decreasing GMV associated with higher neurocognitive performances than the other two groups during adolescence. Group 2 exhibit a slower rate of GMV decrease and lower neurocognitive performances compared with Group 1, which was associated with epigenetic differences and greater environmental burden. Group 3 show increasing GMV and lower baseline neurocognitive performances due to a genetic variation. Using the UK Biobank, we show these differences may be attenuated in mid-to-late adulthood. Our study reveals clusters of adolescent neurodevelopment based on GMV and the potential long-term impact.

Coupled changes between ruminating thoughts and resting-state brain networks during the transition into adulthood.

Perseverative negative thoughts, known as rumination, might arise from emotional challenges and preclude mental health when transitioning into adulthood. Due to its multifaceted nature, rumination can take several ruminative response styles, that diverge in manifestations, severity, and mental health outcomes. Still, prospective ruminative phenotypes remain elusive insofar. Longitudinal study designs are ideal for stratifying ruminative response styles, especially with resting-state functional MRI whose setup naturally elicits people's ruminative traits. Here, we considered self-rated questionnaires on rumination and psychopathology, along with resting-state functional MRI data in 595 individuals assessed at age 18 and 22 from the IMAGEN cohort. We conducted independent component analysis to characterize eight single static resting-state functional networks in each subject and session and furthermore conducted a dynamic analysis, tackling the time variations of functional networks during the entire scanning time. We then investigated their longitudinal mediation role between changes in three ruminative response styles (reflective pondering, brooding, and depressive rumination) and changes in internalizing and co-morbid externalizing symptoms. Four static and two dynamic networks longitudinally differentiated these ruminative styles and showed complemental sensitivity to internalizing and co-morbid externalizing symptoms. Among these networks, the right frontoparietal network covaried with all ruminative styles but did not play any mediation role towards psychopathology. The default mode, the salience, and the limbic networks prospectively stratified these ruminative styles, suggesting that maladaptive ruminative styles are associated with altered corticolimbic function. For static measures, only the salience network played a longitudinal causal role between brooding rumination and internalizing symptoms. Dynamic measures highlighted the default-mode mediation role between the other ruminative styles and co-morbid externalizing symptoms. In conclusion, we identified the ruminative styles' psychometric and neural outcome specificities, supporting their translation into applied research on young adult mental healthcare.

Adolescent maturation of cortical excitation-inhibition balance based on individualized biophysical network modeling.

The balance of excitation and inhibition is a key functional property of cortical microcircuits which changes through the lifespan. Adolescence is considered a crucial period for the maturation of excitation-inhibition balance. This has been primarily observed in animal studies, yet human in vivo evidence on adolescent maturation of the excitation-inhibition balance at the individual level is limited. Here, we developed an individualized in vivo marker of regional excitation-inhibition balance in human adolescents, estimated using large-scale simulations of biophysical network models fitted to resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from two independent cross-sectional (N = 752) and longitudinal (N = 149) cohorts. We found a widespread relative increase of inhibition in association cortices paralleled by a relative age-related increase of excitation, or lack of change, in sensorimotor areas across both datasets. This developmental pattern co-aligned with multiscale markers of sensorimotor-association differentiation. The spatial pattern of excitation-inhibition development in adolescence was robust to inter-individual variability of structural connectomes and modeling configurations. Notably, we found that alternative simulation-based markers of excitation-inhibition balance show a variable sensitivity to maturational change. Taken together, our study highlights an increase of inhibition during adolescence in association areas using cross sectional and longitudinal data, and provides a robust computational framework to estimate microcircuit maturation in vivo at the individual level.

Greater hepatic lipid saturation is associated with impaired glycaemic regulation in men with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease but is not altered by 6 weeks of exercise training.

AIMS: To examine the impact of impaired glycaemic regulation (IGR) and exercise training on hepatic lipid composition in men with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). MATERIALS AND METHODS: In Part A (cross-sectional design), 40 men with MASLD (liver proton density fat fraction [PDFF] ≥5.56%) were recruited to one of two groups: (1) normal glycaemic regulation (NGR) group (glycated haemoglobin [HbA1c] < 42 mmol∙mol-1 [<6.0%]; n = 14) or (2) IGR group (HbA1c ≥ 42 mmol∙mol-1 [≥6.0%]; n = 26). In Part B (randomized controlled trial design), participants in the IGR group were randomized to one of two 6-week interventions: (1) exercise training (EX; 70%-75% maximum heart rate; four sessions/week; n = 13) or (2) non-exercise control (CON; n = 13). Saturated (SI; primary outcome), unsaturated (UI) and polyunsaturated (PUI) hepatic lipid indices were determined using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Additional secondary outcomes included liver PDFF, HbA1c, fasting plasma glucose (FPG), homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), peak oxygen uptake (VO2 peak), and plasma cytokeratin-18 (CK18) M65, among others. RESULTS: In Part A, hepatic SI was higher and hepatic UI was lower in the IGR versus the NGR group (p = 0.038), and this hepatic lipid profile was associated with higher HbA1c levels, FPG levels, HOMA-IR and plasma CK18 M65 levels (rs ≥0.320). In Part B, hepatic lipid composition and liver PDFF were unchanged after EX versus CON (p ≥ 0.257), while FPG was reduced and VO2 peak was increased (p ≤ 0.030). ΔVO2 peak was inversely associated with Δhepatic SI (r = -0.433) and positively associated with Δhepatic UI and Δhepatic PUI (r ≥ 0.433). CONCLUSIONS: Impaired glycaemic regulation in MASLD is characterized by greater hepatic lipid saturation; however, this composition is not altered by 6 weeks of moderate-intensity exercise training.

A framework for a brain-derived nosology of psychiatric disorders.

Current psychiatric diagnoses are not defined by neurobiological measures which hinders the development of therapies targeting mechanisms underlying mental illness 1,2 . Research confined to diagnostic boundaries yields heterogeneous biological results, whereas transdiagnostic studies often investigate individual symptoms in isolation. There is currently no paradigm available to comprehensively investigate the relationship between different clinical symptoms, individual disorders, and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Here, we propose a framework that groups clinical symptoms derived from ICD-10/DSM-V according to shared brain mechanisms defined by brain structure, function, and connectivity. The reassembly of existing ICD-10/DSM-5 symptoms reveal six cross-diagnostic psychopathology scores related to mania symptoms, depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, stress symptoms, eating pathology, and fear symptoms. They were consistently associated with multimodal neuroimaging components in the training sample of young adults aged 23, the independent test sample aged 23, participants aged 14 and 19 years, and in psychiatric patients. The identification of symptom groups of mental illness robustly defined by precisely characterized brain mechanisms enables the development of a psychiatric nosology based upon quantifiable neurobiological measures. As the identified symptom groups align well with existing diagnostic categories, our framework is directly applicable to clinical research and patient care.

Distinct personality profiles associated with disease risk and diagnostic status in eating disorders.

BACKGROUND: Personality traits have been associated with eating disorders (EDs) and comorbidities. However, it is unclear which personality profiles are premorbid risk rather than diagnostic markers. METHODS: We explored associations between personality and ED-related mental health symptoms using canonical correlation analyses. We investigated personality risk profiles in a longitudinal sample, associating personality at age 14 with onset of mental health symptoms at ages 16 or 19. Diagnostic markers were identified in a sample of young adults with anorexia nervosa (AN, n = 58) or bulimia nervosa (BN, n = 63) and healthy controls (n = 47). RESULTS: Two significant premorbid risk profiles were identified, successively explaining 7.93 % and 5.60 % of shared variance (Rc2). The first combined neuroticism (canonical loading, rs = 0.68), openness (rs = 0.32), impulsivity (rs = 0.29), and conscientiousness (rs = 0.27), with future onset of anxiety symptoms (rs = 0.87) and dieting (rs = 0.58). The other, combined lower agreeableness (rs = -0.60) and lower anxiety sensitivity (rs = -0.47), with future deliberate self-harm (rs = 0.76) and purging (rs = 0.55). Personality profiles associated with "core psychopathology" in both AN (Rc2 = 80.56 %) and BN diagnoses (Rc2 = 64.38 %) comprised hopelessness (rs = 0.95, 0.87) and neuroticism (rs = 0.93, 0.94). For BN, this profile also included impulsivity (rs = 0.60). Additionally, extraversion (rs = 0.41) was associated with lower depressive risk in BN. LIMITATIONS: The samples were not ethnically diverse. The clinical cohort included only females. There was non-random attrition in the longitudinal sample. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest neuroticism and impulsivity as risk and diagnostic markers for EDs, with neuroticism and hopelessness as shared diagnostic markers. They may inform the design of more personalised prevention and intervention strategies.

Free-Breathing Functional Pulmonary Proton MRI: A Novel Approach Using Voxel-Wise Lung Ventilation (VOLVE) Assessment in Healthy Volunteers and Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.

BACKGROUND: In respiratory medicine, there is a need for sensitive measures of regional lung function that can be performed using standard imaging technology, without the need for inhaled or intravenous contrast agents. PURPOSE: To describe VOxel-wise Lung VEntilation (VOLVE), a new method for quantifying regional lung ventilation (V) and perfusion (Q) using free-breathing proton MRI, and to evaluate VOLVE in healthy never-smokers, healthy people with smoking history, and people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). STUDY TYPE: Prospective pilot. POPULATION: Twelve healthy never-smoker participants (age 30.3 ± 12.5 years, five male), four healthy participants with smoking history (>10 pack-years) (age 42.5 ± 18.3 years, one male), and 12 participants with COPD (age 62.8 ± 11.1 years, seven male). FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: Single-slice free-breathing two-dimensional fast field echo sequence at 3 T. ASSESSMENT: A novel postprocessing was developed to evaluate the MR signal changes in the lung parenchyma using a linear regression-based approach, which makes use of all the data in the time series for maximum sensitivity. V/Q-weighted maps were produced by computing the cross-correlation, lag and gradient between the respiratory/cardiac phase time course and lung parenchyma signal time courses. A comparison of histogram median and skewness values and spirometry was performed. STATISTICAL TESTS: Kruskal-Wallis tests with Dunn's multiple comparison tests to compare VOLVE metrics between groups; Spearman correlation to assess the correlation between MRI and spirometry-derived parameters; and Bland-Altman analysis and coefficient of variation to evaluate repeatability were used. A P-value <0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: Significant differences between the groups were found for ventilation between healthy never-smoker and COPD groups (median XCCV, LagV, and GradV) and perfusion (median XCCQ, LagQ, and GradQ). Minimal bias and no significant differences between intravisit scans were found (P range = 0.12-0.97). DATA CONCLUSION: This preliminary study showed that VOLVE has potential to provide metrics of function quantification. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 1.

A robust brain network for sustained attention from adolescence to adulthood that predicts later substance use.

Substance use, including cigarettes and cannabis, is associated with poorer sustained attention in late adolescence and early adulthood. Previous studies were predominantly cross-sectional or under-powered and could not indicate if impairment in sustained attention was a predictor of substance-use or a marker of the inclination to engage in such behaviour. This study explored the relationship between sustained attention and substance use across a longitudinal span from ages 14 to 23 in over 1,000 participants. Behaviours and brain connectivity associated with diminished sustained attention at age 14 predicted subsequent increases in cannabis and cigarette smoking, establishing sustained attention as a robust biomarker for vulnerability to substance use. Individual differences in network strength relevant to sustained attention were preserved across developmental stages and sustained attention networks generalized to participants in an external dataset. In summary, brain networks of sustained attention are robust, consistent, and able to predict aspects of later substance use.

Genetics impact risk of Alzheimer's disease through mechanisms modulating structural brain morphology in late life.

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related neuropathological changes can occur decades before clinical symptoms. We aimed to investigate whether neurodevelopment and/or neurodegeneration affects the risk of AD, through reducing structural brain reserve and/or increasing brain atrophy, respectively. METHODS: We used bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomisation to estimate the effects between genetic liability to AD and global and regional cortical thickness, estimated total intracranial volume, volume of subcortical structures and total white matter in 37 680 participants aged 8-81 years across 5 independent cohorts (Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development, Generation R, IMAGEN, Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and UK Biobank). We also examined the effects of global and regional cortical thickness and subcortical volumes from the Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium on AD risk in up to 37 741 participants. RESULTS: Our findings show that AD risk alleles have an age-dependent effect on a range of cortical and subcortical brain measures that starts in mid-life, in non-clinical populations. Evidence for such effects across childhood and young adulthood is weak. Some of the identified structures are not typically implicated in AD, such as those in the striatum (eg, thalamus), with consistent effects from childhood to late adulthood. There was little evidence to suggest brain morphology alters AD risk. CONCLUSIONS: Genetic liability to AD is likely to affect risk of AD primarily through mechanisms affecting indicators of brain morphology in later life, rather than structural brain reserve. Future studies with repeated measures are required for a better understanding and certainty of the mechanisms at play.

Memory impairment in Amyloidß-status Alzheimer's disease is associated with a reduction in CA1 and dentate gyrus volume: In vivo MRI at 7T.

INTRODUCTION: In Alzheimer's disease (AD), early diagnosis facilitates treatment options and leads to beneficial outcomes for patients, their carers and the healthcare system. The neuropsychological battery of the Uniform Data Set (UDSNB3.0) assesses cognition in ageing and dementia, by measuring scores across different cognitive domains such as attention, memory, processing speed, executive function and language. However, its neuroanatomical correlates have not been investigated using 7 Tesla MRI (7T MRI). METHODS: We used 7T MRI to investigate the correlations between hippocampal subfield volumes and the UDSNB3.0 in 24 individuals with Amyloidß-status AD and 18 age-matched controls, with respective age ranges of 60 (42-76) and 62 (52-79) years. AD participants with a Medial Temporal Atrophy scale of higher than 2 on 3T MRI were excluded from the study. RESULTS: A significant difference in the entire hippocampal volume was observed in the AD group compared to healthy controls (HC), primarily influenced by CA1, the largest hippocampal subfield. Notably, no significant difference in whole brain volume between the groups implied that hippocampal volume loss was not merely reflective of overall brain atrophy. UDSNB3.0 cognitive scores showed significant differences between AD and HC, particularly in Memory, Language, and Visuospatial domains. The volume of the Dentate Gyrus (DG) showed a significant association with the Memory and Executive domain scores in AD patients as assessed by the UDSNB3.0.. The data also suggested a non-significant trend for CA1 volume associated with UDSNB3.0 Memory, Executive, and Language domain scores in AD. In a reassessment focusing on hippocampal subfields and MoCA memory subdomains in AD, associations were observed between the DG and Cued, Uncued, and Recognition Memory subscores, whereas CA1 and Tail showed associations only with Cued memory. DISCUSSION: This study reveals differences in the hippocampal volumes measured using 7T MRI, between individuals with early symptomatic AD compared with healthy controls. This highlights the potential of 7T MRI as a valuable tool for early AD diagnosis and the real-time monitoring of AD progression and treatment efficacy. CLINICALTRIALS: GOV: ID NCT04992975 (Clinicaltrial.gov 2023).

Light Cannabis Use and the Adolescent Brain: An 8-years Longitudinal Assessment of Mental Health, Cognition, and Reward Processing.

RATIONALE: For decades, cannabis has been the most widely used illicit substance in the world, particularly among youth. Research suggests that mental health problems associated with cannabis use may result from its effect on reward brain circuit, emotional processes, and cognition. However, findings are mostly derived from correlational studies and inconsistent, particularly in adolescents. OBJECTIVES AND METHODS: Using data from the IMAGEN study, participants (non-users, persistent users, abstinent users) were classified according to their cannabis use at 19 and 22 years-old. All participants were cannabis-naïve at baseline (14 years-old). Psychopathological symptoms, cognitive performance, and brain activity while performing a Monetary Incentive Delay task were used as predictors of substance use and to analyze group differences over time. RESULTS: Higher scores on conduct problems and lower on peer problems at 14 years-old (n = 318) predicted a greater likelihood of transitioning to cannabis use within 5 years. At 19 years of age, individuals who consistently engaged in low-frequency (i.e., light) cannabis use (n = 57) exhibited greater conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention symptoms compared to non-users (n = 52) but did not differ in emotional symptoms, cognitive functioning, or brain activity during the MID task. At 22 years, those who used cannabis at both 19 and 22 years-old n = 17), but not individuals that had been abstinent for ≥ 1 month (n = 19), reported higher conduct problems than non-users (n = 17). CONCLUSIONS: Impairments in reward-related brain activity and cognitive functioning do not appear to precede or succeed cannabis use (i.e., weekly, or monthly use). Cannabis-naïve adolescents with conduct problems and more socially engaged with their peers may be at a greater risk for lighter yet persistent cannabis use in the future.

Use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging for Visualization of Oral Dosage Forms in the Human Stomach: A Scoping Review.

Oral dosage forms are the most widely and frequently used formulations to deliver active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), due to their ease of administration and noninvasiveness. Knowledge of intragastric release rates and gastric mixing is crucial for predicting the API release profile, especially for immediate release formulations. However, knowledge of the intragastric fate of oral dosage forms in vivo to date is limited, particularly for dosage forms administered when the stomach is in the fed state. An improved understanding of gastric food processing, dosage form location, disintegration times, and food effects is essential for greater understanding for effective API formulation design. In vitro standard and controlled modeling has played a significant role in predicting the behavior of dosage forms in vivo. However, discrepancies are reported between in vitro and in vivo disintegration times, with these discrepancies being greatest in the fed state. Studying the fate of a dosage form in vivo is a challenging process, usually requiring the use of invasive methods, such as intubation. Noninvasive, whole body imaging techniques can however provide unique insights into this process. A scoping review was performed systematically to identify and critically appraise published studies using MRI to visualize oral solid dosage forms in vivo in healthy human subjects. The review identifies that so far, an all-purpose robust contrast agent or dosage form type has not been established for dosage form visualization and disintegration studies in the gastrointestinal system. Opportunities have been identified for future studies, with particular focus on characterizing dosage form disintegration for development after the consumption food, as exemplified by the standard Food and Drug Administration (FDA) high fat meal.

Adolescents' pain-related ontogeny shares a neural basis with adults' chronic pain in basothalamo-cortical organization.

During late adolescence, the brain undergoes ontogenic organization altering subcortical-cortical circuitry. This includes regions implicated in pain chronicity, and thus alterations in the adolescent ontogenic organization could predispose to pain chronicity in adulthood - however, evidence is lacking. Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging from a large European longitudinal adolescent cohort and an adult cohort with and without chronic pain, we examined links between painful symptoms and brain connectivity. During late adolescence, thalamo-, caudate-, and red nucleus-cortical connectivity were positively and subthalamo-cortical connectivity negatively associated with painful symptoms. Thalamo-cortical connectivity, but also subthalamo-cortical connectivity, was increased in adults with chronic pain compared to healthy controls. Our results indicate a shared basis in basothalamo-cortical circuitries between adolescent painful symptomatology and adult pain chronicity, with the subthalamic pathway being differentially involved, potentially due to a hyperconnected thalamo-cortical pathway in chronic pain and ontogeny-driven organization. This can inform neuromodulation-based prevention and early intervention.

Differential effects of bilateral hippocampal CA3 damage on the implicit learning and recognition of complex event sequences.

Learning regularities in the environment is a fundament of human cognition, which is supported by a network of brain regions that include the hippocampus. In two experiments, we assessed the effects of selective bilateral damage to human hippocampal subregion CA3, which was associated with autobiographical episodic amnesia extending ~50 years prior to the damage, on the ability to recognize complex, deterministic event sequences presented either in a spatial or a non-spatial configuration. In contrast to findings from related paradigms, modalities, and homologue species, hippocampal damage did not preclude recognition memory for an event sequence studied and tested at four spatial locations, whereas recognition memory for an event sequence presented at a single location was at chance. In two additional experiments, recognition memory for novel single-items was intact, whereas the ability to recognize novel single-items in a different location from that presented at study was at chance. The results are at variance with a general role of the hippocampus in the learning and recognition of complex event sequences based on non-adjacent spatial and temporal dependencies. We discuss the impact of the results on established theoretical accounts of the hippocampal contributions to implicit sequence learning and episodic memory.

The relationship between negative life events and cortical structural connectivity in adolescents.

Adolescence is a crucial period for physical and psychological development. The impact of negative life events represents a risk factor for the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders. This study aims to investigate the relationship between negative life events and structural brain connectivity, considering both graph theory and connectivity strength. A group (n = 487) of adolescents from the IMAGEN Consortium was divided into Low and High Stress groups. Brain networks were extracted at an individual level, based on morphological similarity between grey matter regions with regions defined using an atlas-based region of interest (ROI) approach. Between-group comparisons were performed with global and local graph theory measures in a range of sparsity levels. The analysis was also performed in a larger sample of adolescents (n = 976) to examine linear correlations between stress level and network measures. Connectivity strength differences were investigated with network-based statistics. Negative life events were not found to be a factor influencing global network measures at any sparsity level. At local network level, between-group differences were found in centrality measures of the left somato-motor network (a decrease of betweenness centrality was seen at sparsity 5%), of the bilateral central visual and the left dorsal attention network (increase of degree at sparsity 10% at sparsity 30% respectively). Network-based statistics analysis showed an increase in connectivity strength in the High stress group in edges connecting the dorsal attention, limbic and salience networks. This study suggests negative life events alone do not alter structural connectivity globally, but they are associated to connectivity properties in areas involved in emotion and attention.

Adolescent to young adult longitudinal development of subcortical volumes in two European sites with four waves.

Adolescent subcortical structural brain development might underlie psychopathological symptoms, which often emerge in adolescence. At the same time, sex differences exist in psychopathology, which might be mirrored in underlying sex differences in structural development. However, previous studies showed inconsistencies in subcortical trajectories and potential sex differences. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the subcortical structural trajectories and their sex differences across adolescence using for the first time a single cohort design, the same quality control procedure, software, and a general additive mixed modeling approach. We investigated two large European sites from ages 14 to 24 with 503 participants and 1408 total scans from France and Germany as part of the IMAGEN project including four waves of data acquisition. We found significantly larger volumes in males versus females in both sites and across all seven subcortical regions. Sex differences in age-related trajectories were observed across all regions in both sites. Our findings provide further evidence of sex differences in longitudinal adolescent brain development of subcortical regions and thus might eventually support the relationship of underlying brain development and different adolescent psychopathology in boys and girls.

Population clustering of structural brain aging and its association with brain development.

Structural brain aging has demonstrated strong inter-individual heterogeneity and mirroring patterns with brain development. However, due to the lack of large-scale longitudinal neuroimaging studies, most of the existing research focused on the cross-sectional changes of brain aging. In this investigation, we present a data-driven approach that incorporate both cross-sectional changes and longitudinal trajectories of structural brain aging and identified two brain aging patterns among 37,013 healthy participants from UK Biobank. Participants with accelerated brain aging also demonstrated accelerated biological aging, cognitive decline and increased genetic susceptibilities to major neuropsychiatric disorders. Further, by integrating longitudinal neuroimaging studies from a multi-center adolescent cohort, we validated the "last in, first out" mirroring hypothesis and identified brain regions with manifested mirroring patterns between brain aging and brain development. Genomic analyses revealed risk loci and genes contributing to accelerated brain aging and delayed brain development, providing molecular basis for elucidating the biological mechanisms underlying brain aging and related disorders.

The genetic architecture of the human hypothalamus and its involvement in neuropsychiatric behaviours and disorders.

Despite its crucial role in the regulation of vital metabolic and neurological functions, the genetic architecture of the hypothalamus remains unknown. Here we conducted multivariate genome-wide association studies (GWAS) using hypothalamic imaging data from 32,956 individuals to uncover the genetic underpinnings of the hypothalamus and its involvement in neuropsychiatric traits. There were 23 significant loci associated with the whole hypothalamus and its subunits, with functional enrichment for genes involved in intracellular trafficking systems and metabolic processes of steroid-related compounds. The hypothalamus exhibited substantial genetic associations with limbic system structures and neuropsychiatric traits including chronotype, risky behaviour, cognition, satiety and sympathetic-parasympathetic activity. The strongest signal in the primary GWAS, the ADAMTS8 locus, was replicated in three independent datasets (N = 1,685-4,321) and was strengthened after meta-analysis. Exome-wide association analyses added evidence to the association for ADAMTS8, and Mendelian randomization showed lower ADAMTS8 expression with larger hypothalamic volumes. The current study advances our understanding of complex structure-function relationships of the hypothalamus and provides insights into the molecular mechanisms that underlie hypothalamic formation.

Colon length in pediatric health and constipation measured using magnetic resonance imaging and three dimensional skeletonization.

Recent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies showed that colonic volumes in children are different between health and functional constipation. The length of the colon has however been rarely measured and principally using unphysiological colon preparations or cadaver studies. The main objective of this study was to measure the length of the undisturbed colon in children with functional constipation (FC) and healthy controls. Here, the colon of 19 healthy controls (10-18 years old) and 16 children with FC (7-18 years old) was imaged using MRI. Different regions of the colon (ascending, transverse, descending, and sigmoid-rectum) were first segmented manually on the MRI images. Three-dimensional skeletonization image analysis methods were then used to reduce the regions of interest to a central, measurable line. Total colon length (corrected for body surface area) in healthy controls was 56±2 cm/m2 (mean±SEM). Total colon length was significantly longer in children with FC 69±3 cm/m2 compared to controls (p = 0.0037). The colon regions showing the largest differences between groups were the ascending colon (p = 0.0479) and the sigmoid-rectum (p = 0.0003). In a linear regression model, there was a positive significant correlation between total colon length and age (R = 0.45, p = 0.0064), height (R = 0.49, p = 0.0031), weight (R = 0.46, p = 0.0059) and colon volume (R = 0.4543, p = 0.0061). Our findings showed significant differences in colon lengths between healthy controls and children with constipation. A new objective diagnostic imaging endpoint such as colon length may help to improve knowledge of colon morphology and function and, in turn, understanding of colon functional pathology.

Whole-brain gray matter maturation trajectories associated with autistic traits from adolescence to early adulthood.

A growing number of evidence supports a continued distribution of autistic traits in the general population. However, brain maturation trajectories of autistic traits as well as the influence of sex on these trajectories remain largely unknown. We investigated the association of autistic traits in the general population, with longitudinal gray matter (GM) maturation trajectories during the critical period of adolescence. We assessed 709 community-based adolescents (54.7% women) at age 14 and 22. After testing the effect of sex, we used whole-brain voxel-based morphometry to measure longitudinal GM volumes changes associated with autistic traits measured by the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) total and sub-scores. In women, we observed that the SRS was associated with slower GM volume decrease globally and in the left parahippocampus and middle temporal gyrus. The social communication sub-score correlated with slower GM volume decrease in the left parahippocampal, superior temporal gyrus, and pallidum; and the social cognition sub-score correlated with slower GM volume decrease in the left middle temporal gyrus, the right ventromedial prefrontal and orbitofrontal cortex. No longitudinal association was found in men. Autistic traits in young women were found to be associated with specific brain trajectories in regions of the social brain and the reward circuit known to be involved in Autism Spectrum Disorder. These findings support both the hypothesis of an earlier GM maturation associated with autistic traits in adolescence and of protective mechanisms in women. They advocate for further studies on brain trajectories associated with autistic traits in women.