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- Barazanji, Nawroz, et al.
(author)
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Irritable bowel syndrome in women: Association between decreased insular subregion volumes and gastrointestinal symptoms
- 2022
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In: NeuroImage. - : Elsevier. - 2213-1582. ; 35
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a chronic pain disorder characterized by disturbed interactions between the gut and the brain with depression as a common comorbidity. In both IBS and depression, structural brain alterations of the insular cortices, key structures for pain processing and interoception, have been demonstrated but the specificity of these findings remains unclear. We compared the gray matter volume (GMV) of insular cortex (IC) subregions in IBS women and healthy controls (HC) and examined relations to gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and glutamate + glutamine (Glx) concentrations. We further analyzed GMV of IC subregions in women with major depression (MDD) compared to HC and addressed possible differences between depression, IBS, IBS with depression and HC.
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- Bednarska, Olga, et al.
(author)
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Neurotransmittor Concentration in Pregenual ACC in Stool Consistency Patient Subgroups With IBS
- 2014
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- IntroductionThe Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) is a key region of the central autonomic brain network. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is characterized abdominal pain and bowel habit disturbances. Autonomic dysregulation has been reported in IBS as well as altered ACC activation in pregenual ACC during visceral stimulation 1 2. Glutamate is the major excitatory and Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the brain.Aim & MethodsWe aimed to measure neurotransmitter concentration in the pregenual ACC, in stool consistency subgroups with IBS by using quantitative neurotransmitter Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (qMRS)Seven patients with IBS-mixed (6 women) and five patients with IBS -diarrhea (4 women) according to Rome 3 were included. Mean age was 34.2 years (SD 5.3) with no significant difference between subgroups. Patients completed symptom severity score (IBS-SSS). Quantitative MRS was measured in a 3T MRI scanner. A water-suppressed MEGA-PRESS sequence (TR 2.0 s, TE 68 ms) was used with the editing pulses placed at 1.90 ppm (‘ON-dynamics’) and at 7.46 ppm (‘OFF-dynamics’) with a voxel (3x3x3 cm3) placed in the pACC. Each MEGA-PRESS measurement resulted in a sequence of 40 OFF- and ON-dynamics, where each was computed by 8 phase cycles. Directly after each water-suppressed MEGA-PRESS measurement, a shorter 2-dynamic unsuppressed water MEGA-PRESS measurement was performed within the same voxel, which was used to obtain the concentrations in physically well-defined units of [mM]. The GABA concentrations were computed by averaging the difference spectra obtained by subtracting each OFF-dynamic from subsequent ON-dynamic and using LCModel (Version 6.3) for the final quantification. The Glutamate concentrations were obtained by only averaging the OFF-dynamics, which were not affected by the editing pulses. Additionally, all dynamics were phase and frequency corrected prior to the averaging. For group comparison unpaired T-tests were used.ResultsPatients had moderate to severe symptoms with IBS-SSS of 367 (SD 79.7). There was no significant difference between IBS subgroups in terms of IBS-SSS. Mean pACC GABA concentration was 1.66 (SD 0.17) mM in IBS-M and 1.65 (SD 0.27) mM in IBS-D. There was no significant difference between groups (p=0.9). Mean pACC Glutamate concentration was 4.54 (0.35) mM in IBS-M and 5.13 (SD 0.64) mM in IBS-D. There was no significant difference between groups, although a trend with p=0.06 was observed.ConclusionFurther qMRS data have to be collected in IBS patients as well as healthy controls to evaluate if IBS subgroups demonstrate alterations in pACC glutamate and GABA concentrations
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3. |
- Bednarska, Olga, 1973-, et al.
(author)
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Reduced excitatory neurotransmitter levels in anterior insulae are associated with abdominal pain in irritable bowel syndrome
- 2019
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In: Pain. - : Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. - 0304-3959 .- 1872-6623. ; 160:9, s. 2004-2012
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a visceral pain condition with psychological comorbidity. Brain imaging studies in IBS demonstratealtered function in anterior insula (aINS), a key hub for integration of interoceptive, affective, and cognitive processes. However,alterations in aINS excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission as putative biochemical underpinnings of these functional changesremain elusive. Using quantitative magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we compared women with IBS and healthy women (healthycontrols [HC]) with respect to aINS glutamate 1 glutamine (Glx) and g-aminobutyric acid (GABA1) concentrations and addressedpossible associations with symptoms. Thirty-nine women with IBS and 21 HC underwent quantitative magnetic resonancespectroscopy of bilateral aINS to assess Glx and GABA1 concentrations. Questionnaire data from all participants and prospectivesymptom-diary data from patients were obtained for regression analyses of neurotransmitter concentrations with IBS-related andpsychological parameters. Concentrations of Glx were lower in IBS compared with HC (left aINS P , 0.05, right aINS P , 0.001),whereas no group differences were detected for GABA1concentrations. Lower right-lateralized Glx concentrations in patients weresubstantially predicted by longer pain duration, while less frequent use of adaptive pain‐coping predicted lower Glx in left aINS. Ourfindings provide first evidence for reduced excitatory but unaltered inhibitory neurotransmitter levels in aINS in IBS. The results alsoindicate a functional lateralization of aINS with a stronger involvement of the right hemisphere in perception of abdominal pain and ofthe left aINS in cognitive pain regulation. Our findings suggest that glutaminergic deficiency may play a role in pain processing in IBS.
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4. |
- Icenhour, Adriane, et al.
(author)
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Elucidating the putative link between prefrontal neurotransmission, functional connectivity, and affective symptoms in irritable bowel syndrome
- 2019
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In: Scientific Reports. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2045-2322. ; 9
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Altered neural mechanisms are well-acknowledged in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a disorder of brain-gut-communication highly comorbid with anxiety and depression. As a key hub in corticolimbic inhibition, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) may be involved in disturbed emotion regulation in IBS. However, aberrant mPFC excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission potentially contributing to psychological symptoms in IBS remains unknown. Using quantitative magnetic resonance spectroscopy (qMRS), we compared mPFC glutamate + glutamine (Glx) and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA+) concentrations in 64 women with IBS and 32 age-matched healthy women (HCs) and investigated their association with anxiety and depression in correlational and subgroup analyses. Applying functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we explored whether altered neurotransmission was paralleled by aberrant mPFC resting-state functional connectivity (FC). IBS patients did not differ from HCs with respect to mPFC GABA+ or Glx levels. Anxiety was positively associated with mPFC GABA+ concentrations in IBS, whereas Glx was unrelated to psychological or gastrointestinal symptoms. Subgroup comparisons of patients with high or low anxiety symptom severity and HCs revealed increased GABA+ in patients with high symptom severity, and lower mPFC FC with adjacent anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a crucial region of emotion modulation. Our findings provide novel evidence that altered prefrontal inhibitory neurotransmission may be linked to anxiety in IBS.
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7. |
- Tapper, Sofie, 1989-, et al.
(author)
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A pilot study of essential tremor: cerebellar GABA+/Glx ratio is correlated with tremor severity
- 2020
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In: Cerebellum & ataxias. - : BioMed Central. - 2053-8871. ; 7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Essential tremor is a common movement disorder with an unclear origin. Emerging evidence suggests the role of the cerebellum and the thalamus in tremor pathophysiology. We examined the two main neurotransmitters acting inhibitory (GABA+) and excitatory (Glx) respectively, in the thalamus and cerebellum, in patients diagnosed with severe essential tremor. Furthermore, we also investigated the relationship between determined neurotransmitter concentrations and tremor severity in the essential tremor patients.
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8. |
- Tapper, Sofie, et al.
(author)
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Artifact Detection Using Correlation Analyses Applied to MEGA-PRESS Data Containing Subject Head Movements
- 2018
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In: ; , s. 2655-2655
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Subject movements and other disturbances might contaminate the Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy data, and these artifacts can be misinterpreted as actual metabolite signals by the quantification program. Thus, an automatic method could be very helpful for finding artifacts and eliminating them. In this work, an approach of using correlation analyses was tested in order to evaluate if motion contaminated data could be identified. A total of 296/320 spectra were correctly categorized according to the movement-paradigm. This procedure could be suitable for identifying data that are affected by subject motion or other artifacts that would reduce the quality of the result.
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9. |
- Tapper, Sofie, et al.
(author)
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How does motion affect GABA-measurements? Order statistic filtering compared to conventional analysis of MEGA-PRESS MRS
- 2017
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science. - 1932-6203. ; 12:5
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose The aim of this study was to evaluate two post-processing techniques applied to MRS MEGA-PRESS data influenced by motion-induced artifacts. In contrast to the conventional averaging technique, order statistic filtering (OSF) is a known method for artifact reduction. Therefore, this method may be suitable to incorporate in the GABA quantification. Methods Twelve healthy volunteers were scanned three times using a 3 T MR system. One measurement protocol consisted of two MEGA-PRESS measurements, one reference measurement and one measurement including head motions. The resulting datasets were analyzed with the standard averaging technique and with the OSF-technique in two schemes; filtering phase cycles RAW PC and filtering dynamics RAW Dyn. Results The datasets containing artifacts resulted in an underestimation of the concentrations. There was a trend for the OSF-technique to compensate for this reduction when quantifying SNR-intense signals. However, there was no indication that OSF improved the estimated GABA concentrations. Moreover, when only considering the reference measurements, the OSF technique was equally as effective as averaging, which suggests that the techniques are interchangeable. Conclusion OSF performed equally well as the conventional averaging technique for low-SNR signals. For high-SNR signals, OSF performed better and thus could be considered for routine usage.
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10. |
- Tapper, Sofie, et al.
(author)
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Influence of editing pulse flip angle on J-difference MR spectroscopy
- 2021
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In: Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. - : WILEY. - 0740-3194 .- 1522-2594.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Purpose To investigate the editing-pulse flip angle (FA) dependence of editing efficiency and ultimately to maximize the edited signal of commonly edited MR spectroscopy (MRS) signals, such as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and lactate. Methods Density-matrix simulations were performed for a range of spin systems to find the editing-pulse FA for maximal editing efficiency. Simulations were confirmed by phantom experiments and in vivo measurements in 10 healthy participants using a 3T Philips scanner. Four MEGA-PRESS in vivo measurements targeting GABA+ and lactate were performed, comparing the conventional editing-pulse FA (FA = 180 degrees) to the optimal one suggested by simulations (FA = 210 degrees). Results Simulations and phantom experiments show that edited GABA and lactate signals are maximal at FA = 210 degrees. Compared to conventional editing (FA = 180 degrees), in vivo signals from GABA+ and lactate signals increase on average by 8.5% and 9.3%, respectively. Conclusion Increasing the FA of editing-pulses in the MEGA-PRESS experiment from 180 degrees to 210 degrees increases the edited signals from GABA+ and lactate by about 9% in vivo.
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