Bilinguals from Larynx to Lips: Exploring Bilingual Articulatory Strategies with Anatomic MRI Data.

The goal of this article is to illustrate the use of MRI for exploring bi- and multi-lingual articulatory strategies. One male and one female speaker recorded sets of static midsagittal MRIs of the whole vocal tract, producing vowels as well as consonants in various vowel contexts in either the male's two or the female's three languages. Both speakers were native speakers of English (American and Australian English, respectively), and both were fluent L2 speakers of French. In addition, the female speaker was a heritage speaker of Croatian. Articulatory contours extracted from the MRIs were subsequently used at three progressively more compact and abstract levels of analysis. (1) Direct comparison of overlaid contours was used to assess whether phones analogous across L1 and L2 are similar or dissimilar, both overall and in specific vocal tract regions. (2) Consonant contour variability along the vocal tract due to vowel context was determined using dispersion ellipses and used to explore the variable resistance to coarticulation for non-analogous rhotics and analogous laterals in Australian, French, and Croatian. (3) Articulatory modeling was used to focus on specific articulatory gestures (tongue position and shape, lip protrusion, laryngeal height, etc.) and then to explore the articulatory strategies in the speakers' interlanguages for production of the French front rounded vowel series. This revealed that the Australian and American speakers used different strategies to produce the non-analogous French vowel series. We conclude that MRI-based articulatory data constitute a very rich and underused source of information that amply deserves applications to the study of L2 articulation and bilingual and multi-lingual speech.

Study protocol: Cerebral characterization of sensory gating in disconnected dreaming states during propofol anesthesia using fMRI.

Background: Disconnected consciousness describes a state in which subjective experience (i.e., consciousness) becomes isolated from the external world. It appears frequently during sleep or sedation, when subjective experiences remain vivid but are unaffected by external stimuli. Traditional methods of differentiating connected and disconnected consciousness, such as relying on behavioral responsiveness or on post-anesthesia reports, have demonstrated limited accuracy: unresponsiveness has been shown to not necessarily equate to unconsciousness and amnesic effects of anesthesia and sleep can impair explicit recollection of events occurred during sleep/sedation. Due to these methodological challenges, our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying sensory disconnection remains limited. Methods: To overcome these methodological challenges, we employ a distinctive strategy by combining a serial awakening paradigm with auditory stimulation during mild propofol sedation. While under sedation, participants are systematically exposed to auditory stimuli and questioned about their subjective experience (to assess consciousness) and their awareness of the sounds (to evaluate connectedness/disconnectedness from the environment). The data collected through interviews are used to categorize participants into connected and disconnected consciousness states. This method circumvents the requirement for responsiveness in assessing consciousness and mitigates amnesic effects of anesthesia as participants are questioned while still under sedation. Functional MRI data are concurrently collected to investigate cerebral activity patterns during connected and disconnected states, to elucidate sensory disconnection neural gating mechanisms. We examine whether this gating mechanism resides at the thalamic level or results from disruptions in information propagation to higher cortices. Furthermore, we explore the potential role of slow-wave activity (SWA) in inducing disconnected consciousness by quantifying high-frequency BOLD oscillations, a known correlate of slow-wave activity. Discussion: This study represents a notable advancement in the investigation of sensory disconnection. The serial awakening paradigm effectively mitigates amnesic effects by collecting reports immediately after regaining responsiveness, while still under sedation. Ultimately, this research holds the potential to understand how sensory gating is achieved at the neural level. These biomarkers might be relevant for the development of sensitive anesthesia monitoring to avoid intraoperative connected consciousness and for the assessment of patients suffering from pathologically reduced consciousness. Clinical trial registration: European Union Drug Regulating Authorities Clinical Trials Database (EudraCT), identifier 2020-003524-17.

Light modulates task-dependent thalamo-cortical connectivity during an auditory attentional task.

Exposure to blue wavelength light stimulates alertness and performance by modulating a widespread set of task-dependent cortical and subcortical areas. How light affects the crosstalk between brain areas to trigger this stimulating effect is not established. Here we record the brain activity of 19 healthy young participants (24.05±2.63; 12 women) while they complete an auditory attentional task in darkness or under an active (blue-enriched) or a control (orange) light, in an ultra-high-field 7 Tesla MRI scanner. We test if light modulates the effective connectivity between an area of the posterior associative thalamus, encompassing the pulvinar, and the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), key areas in the regulation of attention. We find that only the blue-enriched light strengthens the connection from the posterior thalamus to the IPS. To the best of our knowledge, our results provide the first empirical data supporting that blue wavelength light affects ongoing non-visual cognitive activity by modulating task-dependent information flow from subcortical to cortical areas.

Locus coeruleus activity while awake is associated with REM sleep quality in older individuals.

BACKGROUNDThe locus coeruleus (LC) is the primary source of norepinephrine in the brain and regulates arousal and sleep. Animal research shows that it plays important roles in the transition between sleep and wakefulness, and between slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep (REMS). It is unclear, however, whether the activity of the LC predicts sleep variability in humans.METHODSWe used 7-Tesla functional MRI, sleep electroencephalography (EEG), and a sleep questionnaire to test whether the LC activity during wakefulness was associated with sleep quality in 33 healthy younger (~22 years old; 28 women, 5 men) and 19 older (~61 years old; 14 women, 5 men) individuals.RESULTSWe found that, in older but not in younger participants, higher LC activity, as probed during an auditory attentional task, was associated with worse subjective sleep quality and with lower power over the EEG theta band during REMS. The results remained robust even when accounting for the age-related changes in the integrity of the LC.CONCLUSIONThese findings suggest that LC activity correlates with the perception of the sleep quality and an essential oscillatory mode of REMS, and we found that the LC may be an important target in the treatment of sleep- and age-related diseases.FUNDINGThis work was supported by Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS, T.0242.19 & J. 0222.20), Action de Recherche Concertée - Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles (ARC SLEEPDEM 17/27-09), Fondation Recherche Alzheimer (SAO-FRA 2019/0025), ULiège, and European Regional Development Fund (Radiomed & Biomed-Hub).

Structural and functional characterization of the locus coeruleus in young and late middle-aged individuals.

Introduction: The brainstem locus coeruleus (LC) influences a broad range of brain processes, including cognition. The so-called LC contrast is an accepted marker of the integrity of the LC that consists of a local hyperintensity on specific Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) structural images. The small size of the LC has, however, rendered its functional characterization difficult in humans, including in aging. A full characterization of the structural and functional characteristics of the LC in healthy young and late middle-aged individuals is needed to determine the potential roles of the LC in different medical conditions. Here, we wanted to determine whether the activation of the LC in a mismatch negativity task changes in aging and whether the LC functional response was associated to the LC contrast. Methods: We used Ultra-High Field (UHF) 7-Tesla functional MRI (fMRI) to record brain response during an auditory oddball task in 53 healthy volunteers, including 34 younger (age: 22.15y ± 3.27; 29 women) and 19 late middle-aged (age: 61.05y ± 5.3; 14 women) individuals. Results: Whole-brain analyses confirmed brain responses in the typical cortical and subcortical regions previously associated with mismatch negativity. When focusing on the brainstem, we found a significant response in the rostral part of the LC probability mask generated based on individual LC images. Although bilateral, the activation was more extensive in the left LC. Individual LC activity was not significantly different between young and late middle-aged individuals. Importantly, while the LC contrast was higher in older individuals, the functional response of the LC was not significantly associated with its contrast. Discussion: These findings may suggest that the age-related alterations of the LC structural integrity may not be related to changes in its functional response. The results further suggest that LC responses may remain stable in healthy individuals aged 20 to 70.

In vivo Locus Coeruleus activity while awake is associated with REM sleep quality in healthy older individuals.

The locus coeruleus (LC) is the primary source of norepinephrine (NE) in the brain, and the LC-NE system is involved in regulating arousal and sleep. It plays key roles in the transition between sleep and wakefulness, and between slow wave sleep (SWS) and rapid eye movement sleep (REMS). However, it is not clear whether the LC activity during the day predicts sleep quality and sleep properties during the night, and how this varies as a function of age. Here, we used 7 Tesla functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (7T fMRI), sleep electroencephalography (EEG) and a sleep questionnaire to test whether the LC activity during wakefulness was associated with sleep quality in 52 healthy younger (N=33; ~22y; 28 women) and older (N=19; ~61y; 14 women) individuals. We find that, in older, but not in younger participants, higher LC activity, as probed during an auditory mismatch negativity task, is associated with worse subjective sleep quality and with lower power over the EEG theta band during REMS (4-8Hz), which are two sleep parameters significantly correlated in our sample of older individuals. The results remain robust even when accounting for the age-related changes in the integrity of the LC. These findings suggest that the activity of the LC may contribute to the perception of the sleep quality and to an essential oscillatory mode of REMS, and that the LC may be an important target in the treatment of sleep disorders and age-related diseases.

Efficacy and auditory biomarker analysis of fronto-temporal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in targeting cognitive impairment associated with recent-onset schizophrenia: study protocol for a multicenter randomized double-blind sham-controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: In parallel to the traditional symptomatology, deficits in cognition (memory, attention, reasoning, social functioning) contribute significantly to disability and suffering in individuals with schizophrenia. Cognitive deficits have been closely linked to alterations in early auditory processes (EAP) that occur in auditory cortical areas. Preliminary evidence indicates that cognitive deficits in schizophrenia can be improved with a reliable and safe non-invasive brain stimulation technique called tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation). However, a significant proportion of patients derive no cognitive benefits after tDCS treatment. Furthermore, the neurobiological mechanisms of cognitive changes after tDCS have been poorly explored in trials and are thus still unclear. METHOD: The study is designed as a randomized, double-blind, 2-arm parallel-group, sham-controlled, multicenter trial. Sixty participants with recent-onset schizophrenia and cognitive impairment will be randomly allocated to receive either active (n=30) or sham (n=30) tDCS (20-min, 2-mA, 10 sessions during 5 consecutive weekdays). The anode will be placed over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the cathode over the left auditory cortex. Cognition, tolerance, symptoms, general outcome and EAP (measured with EEG and multimodal MRI) will be assessed prior to tDCS (baseline), after the 10 sessions, and at 1- and 3-month follow-up. The primary outcome will be the number of responders, defined as participants demonstrating a cognitive improvement ≥Z=0.5 from baseline on the MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery total score at 1-month follow-up. Additionally, we will measure how differences in EAP modulate individual cognitive benefits from active tDCS and whether there are changes in EAP measures in responders after active tDCS. DISCUSSION: Besides proposing a new fronto-temporal tDCS protocol by targeting the auditory cortical areas, we aim to conduct a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with follow-up assessments up to 3 months. In addition, this study will allow identifying and assessing the value of a wide range of neurobiological EAP measures for predicting and explaining cognitive deficit improvement after tDCS. The results of this trial will constitute a step toward the use of tDCS as a therapeutic tool for the treatment of cognitive impairment in recent-onset schizophrenia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05440955. Prospectively registered on July 1st, 2022.

Comparing the selectivity of vowel representations in cortical auditory vs. motor areas: A repetition-suppression study.

A computational model of speech perception, COSMO (Laurent et al., 2017), predicts that speech sounds should evoke both auditory representations in temporal areas and motor representations mainly in inferior frontal areas. Importantly, the model also predicts that auditory representations should be narrower, i.e. more focused on typical stimuli, than motor representations which would be more tolerant of atypical stimuli. Based on these assumptions, in a repetition-suppression study with functional magnetic resonance imaging data, we show that a sequence of 4 identical vowel sounds produces lower cortical activity (i.e. larger suppression effects) than if the last sound in the sequence is slightly varied. Crucially, temporal regions display an increase in cortical activity even for small acoustic variations, indicating a release of the suppression effect even for stimuli acoustically close to the first stimulus. In contrast, inferior frontal, premotor, insular and cerebellar regions show a release of suppression for larger acoustic variations. This "auditory-narrow motor-wide" pattern for vowel stimuli adds to a number of similar findings on consonant stimuli, confirming that the selectivity of speech sound representations in temporal auditory areas is narrower than in frontal motor areas in the human cortex.

Reconfiguration dynamics of a language-and-memory network in healthy participants and patients with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Current theoretical frameworks suggest that human behaviors are based on strong and complex interactions between cognitive processes such as those underlying language and memory functions in normal and neurological populations. We were interested in assessing the dynamic cerebral substrate of such interaction between language and declarative memory, as the composite function, in healthy controls (HC, N = 19) and patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE, N = 16). Our assumption was that the language and declarative memory integration is based on a language-and-memory network (LMN) that is dynamic and reconfigures according to task demands and brain status. Therefore, we explored two types of LMN dynamics, a state reconfiguration (intrinsic resting-state compared to extrinsic state assessed with a sentence recall task) and a reorganization of state reconfiguration (TLE compared to HC). The dynamics was evaluated in terms of segregation (community or module detection) and integration (connector hubs). In HC, the level of segregation was the same in both states and the mechanism of LMN state reconfiguration was shown through module change of key language and declarative memory regions with integrative roles. In TLE patients, the reorganization of LMN state reconfiguration was reflected in segregation increase and extrinsic modules that were based on shorter-distance connections. While lateral and mesial temporal regions enabled state reconfiguration in HC, these regions showed reduced flexibility in TLE. We discuss our results in a connectomic perspective and propose a dynamic model of language and declarative memory functioning. We claim that complex and interactive cognitive functions, such as language and declarative memory, should be investigated dynamically, considering the interaction between cognitive networks.

TractLearn: A geodesic learning framework for quantitative analysis of brain bundles.

Deep learning-based convolutional neural networks have recently proved their efficiency in providing fast segmentation of major brain fascicles structures, based on diffusion-weighted imaging. The quantitative analysis of brain fascicles then relies on metrics either coming from the tractography process itself or from each voxel along the bundle. Statistical detection of abnormal voxels in the context of disease usually relies on univariate and multivariate statistics models, such as the General Linear Model (GLM). Yet in the case of high-dimensional low sample size data, the GLM often implies high standard deviation range in controls due to anatomical variability, despite the commonly used smoothing process. This can lead to difficulties to detect subtle quantitative alterations from a brain bundle at the voxel scale. Here we introduce TractLearn, a unified framework for brain fascicles quantitative analyses by using geodesic learning as a data-driven learning task. TractLearn allows a mapping between the image high-dimensional domain and the reduced latent space of brain fascicles using a Riemannian approach. We illustrate the robustness of this method on a healthy population with test-retest acquisition of multi-shell diffusion MRI data, demonstrating that it is possible to separately study the global effect due to different MRI sessions from the effect of local bundle alterations. We have then tested the efficiency of our algorithm on a sample of 5 age-matched subjects referred with mild traumatic brain injury. Our contributions are to propose: 1/ A manifold approach to capture controls variability as standard reference instead of an atlas approach based on a Euclidean mean. 2/ A tool to detect global variation of voxels' quantitative values, which accounts for voxels' interactions in a structure rather than analyzing voxels independently. 3/ A ready-to-plug algorithm to highlight nonlinear variation of diffusion MRI metrics. With this regard, TractLearn is a ready-to-use algorithm for precision medicine.

Interactive mapping of language and memory with the GE2REC protocol.

Previous studies have highlighted the importance of considering cognitive functions from a dynamic and interactive perspective and multiple evidence was brought for a language and memory interaction. In this study performed with healthy participants, we present a new protocol entitled GE2REC that interactively accesses the neural representation of language-and-memory network. This protocol consists of three runs related to each other, providing a link between tasks, in order to assure an interactive measure of linguistic and episodic memory processes. GE2REC consists of a sentence generation (GE) in the auditory modality and two recollecting (2REC) memory tasks, one recognition performed in the visual modality, and another one recall performed in the auditory modality. Its efficiency was evaluated in 20 healthy volunteers using a 3T MR imager. Our results corroborate the ability of GE2REC to robustly activate fronto-temporo-parietal language network as well as temporal mesial, prefrontal and parietal cortices in encoding during sentence generation and recognition. GE2REC is useful because it: (a) requires simultaneous and interactive language-and-memory processes and jointly maps their neural basis; (b) explores encoding and retrieval, managing to elicit activation of mesial temporal structures; (c) is easy to perform, hence being suitable for more restrictive settings, and (d) has an ecological dimension of tasks and stimuli. GE2REC may be useful for studying neuroplasticity of cognitive functions, especially in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy who show reorganization of both language and memory networks. Overall, GE2REC can provide valuable information in terms of the practical foundation of exploration language and memory interconnection.

Autologous Mesenchymal Stem Cells Improve Motor Recovery in Subacute Ischemic Stroke: a Randomized Clinical Trial.

While preclinical stroke studies have shown that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) promote recovery, few randomized controlled trials (RCT) have assessed cell therapy in humans. In this RCT, we assessed the safety, feasibility, and efficacy of intravenous autologous bone marrow-derived MSCs in subacute stroke. ISIS-HERMES was a single-center, open-label RCT, with a 2-year follow-up. We enrolled patients aged 18-70 years less than 2 weeks following moderate-severe ischemic carotid stroke. Patients were randomized 2:1 to receive intravenous MSCs or not. Primary outcomes assessed feasibility and safety. Secondary outcomes assessed global and motor recovery. Passive wrist movement functional MRI (fMRI) activity in primary motor cortex (MI) was employed as a motor recovery biomarker. We compared "treated" and "control" groups using as-treated analyses. Of 31 enrolled patients, 16 patients received MSCs. Treatment feasibility was 80%, and there were 10 and 16 adverse events in treated patients, and 12 and 24 in controls at 6-month and 2-year follow-up, respectively. Using mixed modeling analyses, we observed no treatment effects on the Barthel Index, NIHSS, and modified-Rankin scores, but significant improvements in motor-NIHSS (p = 0.004), motor-Fugl-Meyer scores (p = 0.028), and task-related fMRI activity in MI-4a (p = 0.031) and MI-4p (p = 0.002). Intravenous autologous MSC treatment following stroke was safe and feasible. Motor performance and task-related MI activity results suggest that MSCs improve motor recovery through sensorimotor neuroplasticity. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT00875654.

Hubs disruption in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. A resting-state fMRI study on a language-and-memory network.

Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) affects the brain networks at several levels and patients suffering from mTLE experience cognitive impairment for language and memory. Considering the importance of language and memory reorganization in this condition, the present study explores changes of the embedded language-and-memory network (LMN) in terms of functional connectivity (FC) at rest, as measured with functional MRI. We also evaluate the cognitive efficiency of the reorganization, that is, whether or not the reorganizations support or allow the maintenance of optimal cognitive functioning despite the seizure-related damage. Data from 37 patients presenting unifocal mTLE were analyzed and compared to 48 healthy volunteers in terms of LMN-FC using two methods: pairwise correlations (region of interest [ROI]-to-ROI) and graph theory. The cognitive efficiency of the LMN-FC reorganization was measured using correlations between FC parameters and language and memory scores. Our findings revealed a large perturbation of the LMN hubs in patients. We observed a hyperconnectivity of limbic areas near the dysfunctional hippocampus and mainly a hypoconnectivity for several cortical regions remote from the dysfunctional hippocampus. The loss of FC was more important in left mTLE (L-mTLE) than in right (R-mTLE) patients. The LMN-FC reorganization may not be always compensatory and not always useful for patients as it may be associated with lower cognitive performance. We discuss the different connectivity patterns obtained and conclude that interpretation of FC changes in relation to neuropsychological scores is important to determine cognitive efficiency, suggesting the concept of "connectome" would gain to be associated with a "cognitome" concept.

Characterization of inter-speaker articulatory variability: A two-level multi-speaker modelling approach based on MRI data.

Speech communication relies on articulatory and acoustic codes shared between speakers and listeners despite inter-individual differences in morphology and idiosyncratic articulatory strategies. This study addresses the long-standing problem of characterizing and modelling speaker-independent articulatory strategies and inter-speaker articulatory variability. It explores a multi-speaker modelling approach based on two levels: statistically-based linear articulatory models, which capture the speaker-specific articulatory variability on the one hand, are in turn controlled by a speaker model, which captures the inter-speaker variability on the other hand. A low dimensionality speaker model is obtained by taking advantage of the inter-speaker correlations between morphology and strategy. To validate this approach, contours of the vocal tract articulators were manually segmented on midsagittal MRI data recorded from 11 French speakers uttering 62 vowels and consonants. Using these contours, multi-speaker models with 14 articulatory components and two morphology and strategy components led to overall variance explanations of 66%-69% and root-mean-square errors of 0.36-0.38 cm obtained in leave-one-out procedure over the speakers. Results suggest that inter-speaker variability is more related to the morphology than to the idiosyncratic strategies and illustrate the adaptation of the articulatory components to the morphology.

Track-weighted imaging for neuroretina: Evaluations in healthy volunteers and ischemic optic neuropathy.

BACKGROUND: The use of MRI-tractography to explore the human neuroretina is yet to be reported. Track-weighted imaging (TWI) was recently introduced as a qualitative tractography-based method with high anatomical contrast. PURPOSE: To explore the human retina in healthy volunteers and patients with anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (AION) using TWI reconstructions. STUDY TYPE: Prospective. POPULATION: Twenty AION patients compared with 20 healthy volunteers. FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE: 3.0T MRI diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with b-value of 1000 s/mm2 and 60 diffusion-weighting noncollinear directions. ASSESSMENT: We performed constrained spherical deconvolution from the diffusion-weighted signal and volumetric tractography method, whereby 10 million streamlines are initiated from seed points randomly distributed throughout the orbital area. We then reconstructed TWI maps with isotropic voxel size of 300 µm. STATISTICAL TESTS: We tested the effect of the number of diffusion-weighting directions, ocular laterality, and ocular dominance on healthy retinal fascicles distribution. We then performed factorial analysis of variance to test the effects of the presence/absence of the fascicles on the visual field defect in patients. RESULTS: In healthy volunteers, we found more temporal fascicle in right eyes (P = 0.001), more superior fascicles in dominant eyes (P = 0.014), and fewer fascicles with tractography maps based on 30 directions than those based on 45 directions (P = 9 × 10-8 ) and 60 directions (P = 6 × 10-7 ). Eight out of 20 AION patients presented with complete absence of neuroretinal fascicle, side of the disease, which was correlated with visual field mean deviation at the 6-month visit [F(1,17) = 6.97, P = 0.016]. Seven patients presented with a temporal fascicle in the injured eye; this fascicle presence was linked to visual field mean deviation at the 6-month visit [F(1,17) = 8.43, P = 0.009]. DATA CONCLUSION: In AION patients, the presence of the temporal neuroretinal fascicle in the affected eye provides an objective outcome radiological sign correlated with visual performance. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: 2 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018.

Parietal operculum and motor cortex activities predict motor recovery in moderate to severe stroke.

While motor recovery following mild stroke has been extensively studied with neuroimaging, mechanisms of recovery after moderate to severe strokes of the types that are often the focus for novel restorative therapies remain obscure. We used fMRI to: 1) characterize reorganization occurring after moderate to severe subacute stroke, 2) identify brain regions associated with motor recovery and 3) to test whether brain activity associated with passive movement measured in the subacute period could predict motor outcome six months later. Because many patients with large strokes involving sensorimotor regions cannot engage in voluntary movement, we used passive flexion-extension of the paretic wrist to compare 21 patients with subacute ischemic stroke to 24 healthy controls one month after stroke. Clinical motor outcome was assessed with Fugl-Meyer motor scores (motor-FMS) six months later. Multiple regression, with predictors including baseline (one-month) motor-FMS and sensorimotor network regional activity (ROI) measures, was used to determine optimal variable selection for motor outcome prediction. Sensorimotor network ROIs were derived from a meta-analysis of arm voluntary movement tasks. Bootstrapping with 1000 replications was used for internal model validation. During passive movement, both control and patient groups exhibited activity increases in multiple bilateral sensorimotor network regions, including the primary motor (MI), premotor and supplementary motor areas (SMA), cerebellar cortex, putamen, thalamus, insula, Brodmann area (BA) 44 and parietal operculum (OP1-OP4). Compared to controls, patients showed: 1) lower task-related activity in ipsilesional MI, SMA and contralesional cerebellum (lobules V-VI) and 2) higher activity in contralesional MI, superior temporal gyrus and OP1-OP4. Using multiple regression, we found that the combination of baseline motor-FMS, activity in ipsilesional MI (BA4a), putamen and ipsilesional OP1 predicted motor outcome measured 6 months later (adjusted-R2 = 0.85; bootstrap p < 0.001). Baseline motor-FMS alone predicted only 54% of the variance. When baseline motor-FMS was removed, the combination of increased activity in ipsilesional MI-BA4a, ipsilesional thalamus, contralesional mid-cingulum, contralesional OP4 and decreased activity in ipsilesional OP1, predicted better motor outcome (djusted-R2 = 0.96; bootstrap p < 0.001). In subacute stroke, fMRI brain activity related to passive movement measured in a sensorimotor network defined by activity during voluntary movement predicted motor recovery better than baseline motor-FMS alone. Furthermore, fMRI sensorimotor network activity measures considered alone allowed excellent clinical recovery prediction and may provide reliable biomarkers for assessing new therapies in clinical trial contexts. Our findings suggest that neural reorganization related to motor recovery from moderate to severe stroke results from balanced changes in ipsilesional MI (BA4a) and a set of phylogenetically more archaic sensorimotor regions in the ventral sensorimotor trend, in which OP1 and OP4 processes may complement the ipsilesional dorsal motor cortex in achieving compensatory sensorimotor recovery.

Inside Speech: Multisensory and Modality-specific Processing of Tongue and Lip Speech Actions.

Action recognition has been found to rely not only on sensory brain areas but also partly on the observer's motor system. However, whether distinct auditory and visual experiences of an action modulate sensorimotor activity remains largely unknown. In the present sparse sampling fMRI study, we determined to which extent sensory and motor representations interact during the perception of tongue and lip speech actions. Tongue and lip speech actions were selected because tongue movements of our interlocutor are accessible via their impact on speech acoustics but not visible because of its position inside the vocal tract, whereas lip movements are both "audible" and visible. Participants were presented with auditory, visual, and audiovisual speech actions, with the visual inputs related to either a sagittal view of the tongue movements or a facial view of the lip movements of a speaker, previously recorded by an ultrasound imaging system and a video camera. Although the neural networks involved in visual visuolingual and visuofacial perception largely overlapped, stronger motor and somatosensory activations were observed during visuolingual perception. In contrast, stronger activity was found in auditory and visual cortices during visuofacial perception. Complementing these findings, activity in the left premotor cortex and in visual brain areas was found to correlate with visual recognition scores observed for visuolingual and visuofacial speech stimuli, respectively, whereas visual activity correlated with RTs for both stimuli. These results suggest that unimodal and multimodal processing of lip and tongue speech actions rely on common sensorimotor brain areas. They also suggest that visual processing of audible but not visible movements induces motor and visual mental simulation of the perceived actions to facilitate recognition and/or to learn the association between auditory and visual signals.

Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Investigation of Brain Adaptations to 6 Days at 4350 m.

OBJECTIVE: Hypoxic exposure in healthy subjects can induce acute mountain sickness including headache, lethargy, cerebral dysfunction, and substantial cerebral structural alterations which, in worst case, can lead to potentially fatal high altitude cerebral edema. Within this context, the relationships between high altitude-induced cerebral edema, changes in cerebral perfusion, increased brain parenchyma volume, increased intracranial pressure, and symptoms remain unclear. METHODS: In 11 subjects before and after 6 days at 4350 m, we performed multiparametric magnetic resonance investigations including anatomical, apparent diffusion coefficient and arterial spin labeling sequences. RESULTS: After the altitude stay, while subjects were asymptomatic, white matter volume (+0.7 ± 0.4%, p = 0.005), diffusion (+1.7 ± 1.4%, p = 0.002), and cerebral blood flow (+28 ± 38%; p = 0.036) were significantly increased while cerebrospinal fluid volume was reduced (-1.4 ± 1.1%, p = 0.009). Optic nerve sheath diameter (used as an index of increased intracranial pressure) was unchanged from before (5.84 ± 0.53 mm) to after (5.92 ± 0.60 mm, p = 0.390) altitude exposure. Correlations were observed between increases in white matter volume and diffusion (rho = 0.81, p = 0.016) and between changes in CSF volume and changes in ONSD s (rho = -0.92, p = 0.006) and symptoms during the altitude stay (rho = -0.67, p = 0.031). CONCLUSIONS: These data demonstrate white matter alterations after several days at high altitude when subjects are asymptomatic that may represent the normal brain response to prolonged high altitude exposure.

Refined modelling of the short-T2 signal component and ensuing detection of glutamate and glutamine in short-TE, localised, (1) H MR spectra of human glioma measured at 3 T.

Short-TE (1) H MRS has great potential for brain cancer diagnostics. A major difficulty in the analysis of the spectra is the contribution from short-T2 signal components, mainly coming from mobile lipids. This complicates the accurate estimation of the spectral parameters of the resonance lines from metabolites, so that a qualitative to semi-quantitative interpretation of the spectra dominates in practice. One solution to overcome this difficulty is to measure and estimate the short-T2 signal component and to subtract it from the total signal, thus leaving only the metabolite signals. The technique works well when applied to spectra obtained from healthy individuals, but requires some optimisation during data acquisition. In the clinical setting, time constraints hardly allow this. Here, we propose an iterative estimation of the short-T2 signal component, acquired in a single acquisition after measurement of the full spectrum. The method is based on QUEST (quantitation based on quantum estimation) and allows the refinement of the estimate of the short-T2 signal component after measurement. Thus, acquisition protocols used on healthy volunteers can also be used on patients without further optimisation. The aim is to improve metabolite detection and, ultimately, to enable the estimation of the glutamine and glutamate signals distinctly. These two metabolites are of great interest in the characterisation of brain cancer, gliomas in particular. When applied to spectra from healthy volunteers, the new algorithm yields similar results to QUEST and direct subtraction of the short-T2 signal component. With patients, up to 12 metabolites and, at least, seven can be quantified in each individual brain tumour spectrum, depending on the metabolic state of the tumour. The refinement of the short-T2 signal component significantly improves the fitting procedure and produces a separate short-T2 signal component that can be used for the analysis of mobile lipid resonances. Thus, in brain tumour spectra, distinct estimates of signals from glutamate and glutamine are possible. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.