Attempted auto-enucleation in two incarcerated young men with psychosis

Auto-enucleation is a sign of untreated psychosis. We describe two patients who presented with attempted auto-enucleation while being incarcerated. This is an observation two-case series of two young men who suffered untreated psychosis while being incarcerated. These young men showed severe self-inflicted ocular trauma during episodes of untreated psychosis. Injuries included orbital bone fracture and dehiscence of the lateral rectus in one patient and severe retinal hemorrhage and partial optic nerve avulsion in the second patient. Auto-enucleation is a severe symptom of untreated psychosis. This urgent finding can occur in a jail setting in which psychiatric care may be minimal.     

Dynamic functional connectivity in temporal lobe epilepsy: a graph theoretical and machine learning approach

Purpose

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in resting state can be used to evaluate the functional organization of the human brain in the absence of any task or stimulus. The functional connectivity (FC) has non-stationary nature and consented to be varying over time. By considering the dynamic characteristics of the FC and using graph theoretical analysis and a machine learning approach, we aim to identify the laterality in cases of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).

Methods

Six global graph measures are extracted from static and dynamic functional connectivity matrices using fMRI data of 35 unilateral TLE subjects. Alterations in the time trend of the graph measures are quantified. The random forest (RF) method is used for the determination of feature importance and selection of dynamic graph features including mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, and Shannon entropy. The selected features are used in the support vector machine (SVM) classifier to identify the left and right epileptogenic sides in patients with TLE.

Results

Our results for the performance of SVM demonstrate that the utility of dynamic features improves the classification outcome in terms of accuracy (88.5% for dynamic features compared with 82% for static features). Selecting the best dynamic features also elevates the accuracy to 91.5%.

Conclusion

Accounting for the non-stationary characteristics of functional connectivity, dynamic connectivity analysis of graph measures along with machine learning approach can identify the temporal trend of some specific network features. These network features may be used as potential imaging markers in determining the epileptogenic hemisphere in patients with TLE.

     

Introduction to the Special Issue: 2020 Pacific Rim New Horizons in Human Brain Imaging: Neuroimaging across the Lifespan

Brain Imaging and Behavior -     

Using the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative Data to conduct a genome‐wide association study of sleep duration

Sleep is critical to health and functionality, and several studies have investigated the inherited component of insomnia and other sleep disorders using genome‐wide association studies (GWAS). However, genome‐wide studies focused on sleep duration are less common. Here, we used data from participants in the Coriell Personalized Medicine Collaborative (CPMC) (n = 4,401) to examine putative associations between self‐reported sleep duration, demographic and lifestyle variables, and genome‐wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data to better understand genetic contributions to variation in sleep duration. We employed stepwise ordered logistic regression to select our model and retained the following predictive variables: age, gender, weight, physical activity, physical activity at work, smoking status, alcohol consumption, ethnicity, and ancestry (as measured by principal components analysis) in our association testing. Several of our strongest candidate genes were previously identified in GWAS related to sleep duration (TSHZ2, ABCC9, FBXO15) and narcolepsy (NFATC2, SALL4). In addition, we have identified novel candidate genes for involvement in sleep duration including SORCS1 and ELOVL2. Our results demonstrate that the self‐reported data collected through the CPMC are robust, and our genome‐wide association analysis has identified novel candidate genes involved in sleep duration. More generally, this study contributes to a better understanding of the complexity of human sleep. © 2015 The Authors. American Journal of Medical Genetics Part B: Neuropsychiatric Genetics Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Smoking and physical inactivity patterns during midlife as predictors of all-cause mortality and disability: a 39-year prospective study

This study estimated the long-term mortality hazards and disability risks associated with various combinations of smoking and physical inactivity measured over time in a sample of middle-aged adults. Data have been collected from a national sample of Swedish adults, originally interviewed in 1968 and followed until 2007 (N = 1,682). Smoking and physical activity status were measured at baseline and 13 years later (1981). Different patterns of change and stability in smoking and physical inactivity over this 13 year period were used as predictors of mortality through 2007. Also, associations between different patterns of these health behaviors and the odds of disability (measured in 2004) were estimated among survivors (n = 925). Results suggest that mortality rates were elevated among persistent (HR = 1.7; 95 % CI = 1.5–2.0) and new smokers (HR = 2.5; 95 % CI = 1.6–4.1), but not among discontinued smokers. However, mortality rates remained elevated among discontinued smokers who were also persistently inactive (HR = 1.9; 95 % CI = 1.3–2.6). Additional findings suggest that persistent physical inactivity during midlife was associated with increased odds of late life disability (OR = 1.8; 95 % CI = 1.1–2.7), but that smoking had no clear additive or multiplicative effects on disability. As such, these findings indicate that while persistent smoking during midlife primarily impacts subsequent mortality, persistent physical inactivity during midlife appears to counteract the survival benefits of smoking cessation, while also imposing a long-term risk on late life disability among those who do survive to old age.     

Colloid carcinoma of the lung: Current views

Colloid carcinomas of the lung are rare and unusual neoplasms. These tumors need special attention in order to be properly coded as primary pulmonary tumors as they closely resemble their extrathoracic counterparts in their morphologic and immunohistochemical characteristics. Even though, the latest version of the World Health Organization (WHO) has trivialized this entity into garden variety of adenocarcinomas, recently proposed guidelines on pulmonary adenocarcinomas have created some potential to bring back the controversy that appeared to have been settled a decade ago regarding these tumors. Thus, the current review will highlight not only the current concepts but also will bring the historical perspective in an effort to clarify some misconceptions regarding this rare entity.     

Neurofeedback training of gamma band oscillations improves perceptual processing

In this study, a noninvasive electroencephalography-based neurofeedback method is applied to train volunteers to deliberately increase gamma band oscillations (40 Hz) in the visual cortex. Gamma band oscillations in the visual cortex play a functional role in perceptual processing. In a previous study, we were able to demonstrate that gamma band oscillations prior to stimulus presentation have a significant influence on perceptual processing of visual stimuli. In the present study, we aimed to investigate longer lasting effects of gamma band neurofeedback training on perceptual processing. For this purpose, a feedback group was trained to modulate oscillations in the gamma band, while a control group participated in a task with an identical design setting but without gamma band feedback. Before and after training, both groups participated in a perceptual object detection task and a spatial attention task. Our results clearly revealed that only the feedback group but not the control group exhibited a visual processing advantage and an increase in oscillatory gamma band activity in the pre-stimulus period of the processing of the visual object stimuli after the neurofeedback training. Results of the spatial attention task showed no difference between the groups, which underlines the specific role of gamma band oscillations for perceptual processing. In summary, our results show that modulation of gamma band activity selectively affects perceptual processing and therefore supports the relevant role of gamma band activity for this specific process. Furthermore, our results demonstrate the eligibility of gamma band oscillations as a valuable tool for neurofeedback applications.     

How Frequently are Words used on Naming Tests used in Spoken Conversation?

Naming, or word-finding ability, is typically assessed using measures that require a patient to name a pictured object. Words used less frequently tend to be more difficult to find when speaking; thus word frequency can be used as a measure of item difficulty on such tests. However, frequency data for words on naming measures has either not been used in the creation of these tests or has been derived from data on how frequently words have been used in written materials. The present study determined how frequently words on the Boston Naming Test (BNT), the Neuropsychological Assessment Battery (NAB) naming subtest, the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) naming subtest, and auditory naming measures developed by Hamberger and Seidel (2003, Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 9, 479) and Brandt et al. (2010, The Clinical Neuropsychologist, 24, 1326) are used in spoken language. Items on the auditory naming measures had the highest mean frequency, and the BNT items 30–60 had the lowest mean frequency. Furthermore, item frequency on the full BNT, NAB naming forms 1 and 2, and RBANS forms A correlated with item number, indicating items increase in difficulty on these tests, with trends in the same direction found for RBANS form B and Hamberger and Seidel’s auditory naming measure. Finally, differences in mean word frequency between tests underscore how interpretation of change in naming ability based on different measures should be made with caution.