Placebo analgesia is one of the most robust and best-studied placebo effects. With the help of brain imaging tools, such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), our understanding of the brain's role in placebo analgesia has been greatly expanded. Previous studies suggest that multiple mechanisms may underlie the phenomenon of placebo analgesia. This review posits a theoretical framework for interpreting the results of the neuroimaging literature of placebo analgesia.
Regional gray matter (GM) abnormalities are well known to exist in patients with chronic schizophrenia. Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) has been previously used on structural magnetic resonance images (MRI) data to characterize these abnormalities. Two multisite schizophrenia studies, the Functional Biomedical Informatics Research Network and the Mind Clinical Imaging Consortium, which include 9 data collection sites, are evaluating the efficacy of pooling structural imaging data across imaging centers.
Many genetic studies report mixed results both for the associations between COMT polymorphisms and schizophrenia and for the effects of COMT variants on common intermediate phenotypes of the disorder. Reasons for this may include small genetic effect sizes and the modulation of environmental influences.
BACKGROUND: The effect of antipsychotics on the blood oxygen level dependent signal in schizophrenia is poorly understood. The purpose of the present investigation is to examine the effect of antipsychotic medication on independent neural networks during a motor task in a large, multi-site functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation.
OBJECTIVE: While patients with fibromyalgia (FM) are known to exhibit hyperalgesia, the central mechanisms contributing to this altered pain processing are not fully understood. This study was undertaken to investigate potential dysregulation of the neural circuitry underlying cognitive and hedonic aspects of the subjective experience of pain, such as anticipation of pain and anticipation of pain relief.
BACKGROUND: The c.429_452dup24 of the ARX gene is a rare genetic anomaly, leading to X-Linked Intellectual Disability without brain malformation. While in certain cases c.429_452dup24 has been associated with specific clinical patterns such as Partington syndrome, the consequence of this mutation has been also often classified as "non-specific Intellectual Disability". The present work aims at a more precise description of the clinical features linked to the c.429_452dup24 mutation.
BACKGROUND: Kawasaki disease is an acute and time-limited systemic vasculitis primarily affecting young children.
PATIENT: We describe an 18-month-old girl with Kawasaki disease who developed cerebral infarction following complete occlusion of her right internal carotid artery.
RESULTS: The occlusion occurred 10 days after the onset of fever, while she was on high-dose aspirin, and the day after she received intravenous immunoglobulin treatment. We present the first literature review on this very rare complication.
When both structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and functional MRI (fMRI) data are collected they are typically analyzed separately and the joint information is not examined. Techniques that examine joint information can help to find hidden traits in complex disorders such as schizophrenia. The brain is vastly interconnected, and local brain morphology may influence functional activity at distant regions. In this paper we introduce three methods to identify inter-correlations among sMRI and fMRI voxels within the whole brain.
RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: This article presents an initiative for the translation of advances in neuroimage analysis techniques to clinical research scientists. Our objective is to bridge the gap between scientific advances made by the biomedical imaging community and their widespread use in the clinical research community.
