BACKGROUND: Hypokinetic dysarthria (HD) is a common motor speech symptom of Parkinson\'s disease (PD) which does not respond well to PD treatments. We investigated short-term effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on HD in PD using acoustic analysis of speech. Based on our previous studies we focused on stimulation of the right superior temporal gyrus (STG) - an auditory feedback area.
METHODS: In 14 PD patients with HD, we applied anodal, cathodal and sham tDCS to the right STG using a cross-over design. A protocol consisting of speech tasks was performed prior to and immediately after each stimulation session. Linear mixed models were used for the evaluation of the effects of each stimulation condition on the relative change of acoustic parameters. We also performed a simulation of the mean electric field induced by tDCS.
RESULTS: Linear mixed model showed a statistically significant effect of the stimulation condition on the relative change of median duration of silences longer than 50 ms (p = 0.015). The relative change after the anodal stimulation (mean = -5.9) was significantly lower as compared to the relative change after the sham stimulation (mean = 12.8), p = 0.014. We also found a correlation between the mean electric field magnitude in the right STG and improvement of articulation precision after anodal tDCS (R = 0.637; p = 0.019).
CONCLUSIONS: The exploratory study showed that anodal tDCS applied over the auditory feedback area may lead to shorter pauses in a speech of PD patients.

OBJECTIVE: There was more than a 10-fold increase in the incidence of narcolepsy type 1 (NT1) after the H1N1 mass vaccination in 2009/2010 in several countries. NT1 is associated with loss and increase of cell groups in the hypothalamus which may be associated with secondary affected sub-cortical and cortical gray matter. We performed a case-control comparison of MRI-based global and sub-cortical volume and cortical thickness in post-H1N1 NT1 patients compared with controls.
METHODS: We included 54 post-H1N1 NT1 patients (51 with confirmed hypocretin-deficiency; 48 H1N1-vaccinated with Pandemrix®; 39 females, mean age 21.8 ± 11.0 years) and 114 healthy controls (77 females, mean age 23.2 ± 9.0 years). 3T MRI brain scans were obtained, and the T1-weighted MRI data were processed using FreeSurfer. Group differences among three global, 10 sub-cortical volume measures and 34 cortical thickness measures for bilateral brain regions were tested using general linear models with permutation testing.
RESULTS: Patients had significantly thinner brain cortex bilaterally in the temporal poles (Cohen\'s d = 0.68, p = 0.00080), entorhinal cortex (d = 0.60, p = 0.0018) and superior temporal gyrus (d = 0.60, p = 0.0020) compared to healthy controls. The analysis revealed no significant group differences for sub-cortical volumes.
CONCLUSIONS: Post-H1N1(largely Pandemrix®-vaccinated) NT1 patients have significantly thinner cortex in temporal brain regions compared to controls. We speculate that this effect can be partly attributed to the hypothalamic neuronal change in NT1, including loss of function of the widely projecting hypocretin-producing neurons and secondary effects of the abnormal sleep-wake pattern in NT1 or could be specific for post-H1N1 (largely Pandemrix®-vaccinated) NT1 patients.

Sensory over-responsivity (SOR) causes social and daily distress in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Compared to typically developed (TD) individuals, ASD individuals are at higher risk of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which induce abnormal neuronal development. However, whether or how ACEs are associated with abnormal neural development and SOR in ASD remains to be determined. Forty-five individuals with ASD and 43 TD individuals underwent T1-weighted and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging; the axonal and dendritic densities were defined as the neurite density index (NDI). Voxel-based analyses were performed to explore the brain regions associated with SOR. The relationships between severity of ACEs and SOR, and NDI in the brain regions were examined. ASD individuals showed a significantly positive association between SOR severity and NDI in the right superior temporal gyrus (STG), which was not found in TD individuals. Severity of ACEs correlated significantly with that of SOR and NDI in the right STG in ASD; ASD individuals having severe SOR showed significantly higher NDI in the right STG than those with mild SOR and TD individuals. In individuals with ASD, NDI in the right STG, but not ACEs, could predict the severity of SOR, which was not shown in TD subjects. Our findings suggest that severe ACEs are involved in excessive neurite density in the right STG in ASD. ACE-associated excessive neurite density in the right STG is critical for SOR in ASD, which may be a therapeutic target in the future.

UNASSIGNED: The objective of this study is to investigate the correlation between the regional gray matter volumes and length of Para Cingulate Sulcus (PCS) with the clinical profile of patients with schizophrenia.
UNASSIGNED: In this hospital-based, cross-sectional study, thirty consecutive in-patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and equal number of healthy volunteers matched for age- and sex- were recruited as controls. Detailed clinical assessment and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain were carried out within 2 days for controls and within 2 weeks of hospitalization for patients. The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale and Montreal Cognitive Assessment were applied to schizophrenia patients to assess symptoms and cognitive function, respectively.
UNASSIGNED: Schizophrenia patients had significant volume deficit in bilateral amygdalae, bilateral superior temporal gyri, anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral hippocampi, along with a highly significant reduction in the length of right PCS. Schizophrenia patients with the duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) of 6-12 months showed a significantly greater volume of the right superior temporal gyrus (STG). First-episode schizophrenia patients had a significant reduction in the length of the left PCS. The volume of bilateral superior temporal gyri in schizophrenia patients showed a significant direct correlation with positive symptoms and an inverse correlation with negative symptoms.
UNASSIGNED: Schizophrenia patients have significant volume deficit in some brain regions. DUP of 6-12 months is associated with significantly greater volume of the right STG. First-episode schizophrenia patients have a significant reduction in the length of the left PCS. In schizophrenia patients, the volume of bilateral superior temporal gyri showed a significant direct correlation with the positive symptoms and an inverse correlation with the negative symptoms.

Inter-individual variations in the sulco-gyral pattern of Heschl\'s gyrus (HG) might contribute to emotional processing. However, it remains largely unknown whether borderline personality disorder (BPD) patients exhibit an altered HG gyrification pattern, compared with healthy individuals, and whether such a brain morphological feature, if present, might contribute to their clinical characteristics. The present study used magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the distribution of HG gyrification patterns (single or duplicated) and their relationship to clinical characteristics in teenage BPD patients with minimal treatment exposure. No significant difference was noted for the prevalence of HG patterns between 20 BPD and 20 healthy participants. However, the BPD participants with left duplicated HG were characterized by higher prevalence of comorbid disruptive behavior disorders, with higher externalizing score compared with those with left single HG. Our preliminary results suggest that neurodevelopmental pathology associated with gyral formation might be implicated in the neurobiology of early BPD, especially for emotional and behavioral control.

The angular gyrus (AG) wraps the posterior end of the superior temporal sulcus (STS), so it is considered a continuation of the superior temporal gyrus (STG)/ middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and forms the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) with the supramarginal gyrus (SMG). The AG was functionally divided in the literature, but there is no fiber dissection study in this context. This study divided AG into superior (sAG) and inferior (iAG) parts by focusing on STS. Red, blue silicone-injected eight and four non-silicone-injected human cadaveric cerebrums were dissected via the Klingler method focusing on the AG. White matter (WM) tracts identified during dissection were then reconstructed on the Human Connectome Project 1065 individual template for validation. According to this study, superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) II and middle longitudinal fasciculus (MdLF) are associated with sAG; the anterior commissure (AC), optic radiation (OR) with iAG; the arcuate fasciculus (AF), inferior frontooccipital fasciculus (IFOF), and tapetum (Tp) with both parts. In cortical parcellation of AG based on STS, sAG and iAG were associated with different fiber tracts. Although it has been shown in previous studies that there are functionally different subunits with AG parcellation, here, for the first time, other functions of the subunits have been revealed with cadaveric dissection and tractography images.

An increased prevalence of duplicated Heschl\'s gyrus (HG) has been repeatedly demonstrated in various stages of schizophrenia as a potential neurodevelopmental marker, but it remains unknown whether other neuropsychiatric disorders also exhibit this macroscopic brain feature. The present magnetic resonance imaging study aimed to examine the disease specificity of the established finding of altered HG patterns in schizophrenia by examining independent cohorts of bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). Twenty-six BD patients had a significantly higher prevalence of HG duplication bilaterally compared to 24 age- and sex-matched controls, while their clinical characteristics (e.g., onset age, number of episodes, and medication) did not relate to HG patterns. No significant difference was found for the HG patterns between 56 MDD patients and 33 age- and sex-matched controls, but the patients with a single HG were characterized by more severe depressive/anxiety symptoms compared to those with a duplicated HG. Thus, in keeping with previous findings, the present study suggests that neurodevelopmental pathology associated with gyral formation of the HG during the late gestation period partly overlaps between schizophrenia and BD, but that HG patterns may make a somewhat distinct contribution to the phenomenology of MDD.

Individuals with high test anxiety (HTA) have deficits in attentional control and in stress responses when faced with tests. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanism. Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is involved in both attention and emotion networks, therefore this study examined the neural functional dysregulation in test anxiety from the perspective of functional connectivity (FC) using bilateral ACC as the regions of interest.
Fifty-one participants were divided into HTA (n = 23) and low test anxiety (LTA, n = 28) group according to their Test Anxiety Scale (TAS) scores. Brain imaging data in resting, preparing, and recovering phases of a modified social evaluative threat task were collected, and emotional changes were assessed.
Compared with the LTA group, the HTA group exhibited significantly lower FCs between the ACC and superior frontal gyrus (SFG) in all 3 phases, significantly lower FCs between the ACC and inferior parietal gyrus (IPG), and significantly higher FCs between the ACC superior temporal gyrus (STG) in the preparing phase. Moreover, in the HTA group, the resting state IPG-ACC FC was associated with their TAS score, the preparing state STG-ACC FC was associated with the increased anxiety.
Individuals with HTA have general prefrontal control deficits. When facing a test, they tend to recruit more resources to deal with high emotional interference. The dysregulated control of the ACC by the frontal-parietal network may underlie the pathophysiology of test anxiety.

Duplicated Heschl\'s gyrus (HG) is prevalent in patients with schizophrenia and may reflect early neurodevelopmental anomalies. However, it currently remains unclear whether patients with schizotypal disorder, a prototypic disorder within the schizophrenia spectrum, exhibit a similar HG gyrification pattern. In this magnetic resonance imaging study, HG gyrification patterns were examined in 47 patients with schizotypal disorder, 111 with schizophrenia, and 88 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects. HG gyrification patterns were classified as single, common stem duplication (CSD), or complete posterior duplication (CPD). The prevalence of the duplicated HG patterns (CSD or CPD) bilaterally was higher in the schizophrenia and schizotypal groups than in healthy controls, whereas no significant difference was observed between the schizophrenia and schizotypal groups. Schizophrenia patients with the right CPD pattern had less severe positive symptoms, whereas the right single HG pattern was associated with higher doses of antipsychotic medication in schizotypal patients. The present study demonstrated shared HG gyrification patterns in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, which may reflect a common biological vulnerability factor. HG patterns may also be associated with susceptibility to psychopathology.

Debate continues regarding the necessary role of right superior temporal gyrus (STG) regions in sublexical speech perception given the bilateral STG activation often observed in fMRI studies. To evaluate the causal roles, TMS pulses were delivered to inhibit and disrupt neuronal activity at the left and right STG regions during a nonword discrimination task based on peak activations from a blocked fMRI paradigm assessing speech vs. nonspeech perception (N = 20). Relative to a control region located in the posterior occipital lobe, TMS to the left anterior STG (laSTG) led to significantly worse accuracy, whereas TMS to the left posterior STG (lpSTG) and right anterior STG (raSTG) did not. Although the disruption from TMS was significantly greater for the laSTG than for raSTG, the difference in accuracy between the laSTG and lpSTG did not reach significance. The results argue for a causal role of the laSTG but not raSTG in speech perception. Further research is needed to establish the source of the differences between the laSTG and lpSTG.