Brain size

Summary

The 'size of the brain' is a frequent topic of study within the fields of anatomy, biological anthropology, animal science and evolution. Brain size is sometimes measured by weight and sometimes by volume (via MRI scans or by skull volume). Neuroimaging intelligence testing can be used to study the volumetric measurements of the brain. Regarding "intelligence testing", a question that has been frequently investigated is the relation of brain size to intelligence. This question is controversial and will be addressed further in the section on intelligence. The measure of brain size and cranial capacity is not just important to humans, but to all mammals. Humans In humans, the right cerebral hemisphere is typically larger than the left, whereas the cerebellar hemispheres are typically closer in size. The adult human brain weighs on average about . In men the average weight is about 1370 g and in women about 1200 g. The volume is around 1260 cm3 in men and 1130 &nbs

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_size

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Effects of eight neuropsychiatric copy number variants on human brain structure

Bogdan Draganski, Kuldeep Kumar, Lester Melie Garcia, Claudia Modenato, Borja Rodriguez Herreros

Many copy number variants (CNVs) confer risk for the same range of neurodevelopmental symptoms and psychiatric conditions including autism and schizophrenia. Yet, to date neuroimaging studies have typically been carried out one mutation at a time, showing that CNVs have large effects on brain anatomy. Here, we aimed to characterize and quantify the distinct brain morphometry effects and latent dimensions across 8 neuropsychiatric CNVs. We analyzed T1-weighted MRI data from clinically and non-clinically ascertained CNV carriers (deletion/duplication) at the 1q21.1 (n = 39/28), 16p11.2 (n = 87/78), 22q11.2 (n = 75/30), and 15q11.2 (n = 72/76) loci as well as 1296 non-carriers (controls). Case-control contrasts of all examined genomic loci demonstrated effects on brain anatomy, with deletions and duplications showing mirror effects at the global and regional levels. Although CNVs mainly showed distinct brain patterns, principal component analysis (PCA) loaded subsets of CNVs on two latent brain dimensions, which explained 32 and 29% of the variance of the 8 Cohen's d maps. The cingulate gyrus, insula, supplementary motor cortex, and cerebellum were identified by PCA and multi-view pattern learning as top regions contributing to latent dimension shared across subsets of CNVs. The large proportion of distinct CNV effects on brain morphology may explain the small neuroimaging effect sizes reported in polygenic psychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, latent gene brain morphology dimensions will help subgroup the rapidly expanding landscape of neuropsychiatric variants and dissect the heterogeneity of idiopathic conditions.

SPRINGERNATURE2021

Methods for functional connectivity and morphometry in neonatal neuroimaging to study neurodevelopment.

Serafeim Loukas

Preterm birth is a major pediatric health problem that perturbs the genetically determined program of corticogenesis of the developing brain. As a consequence, prematurity has been strongly associated with adverse long-term neurodevelopmental outcome that may persist even into adulthood. Early characterization of the underlying neuronal mechanisms and early identification of infants at risk is of paramount importance since it allows better development of early therapeutic interventions aiming to prevent adverse outcomes through resilience. This dissertation aims to investigate the consequences of preterm birth on brain function and structure and their relation to adverse neurodevelopmental outcome, as well as to unveil the effect of an early music intervention on brain function. Research to date has mainly focused on the effect of early interventions on the long-term outcome but not on the effect of those interventions on brain function in preterm populations. Moreover, a clear consensus about the predictive utility of MRI volumetric data for long-term outcomes is still missing. This dissertation consists of three main parts. First, we investigate the effects of an early musical intervention in preterm infants using a task-based and resting-state fMRI paradigm. We explore brain effective connectivity changes during task and functional connectivity (FC) modulations at rest. We show that music exposure during hospitalization promotes brain auditory processing maturation. We find increased FC between the auditory cortex and regions involved in familiarity and music processing, such as the thalamus and caudate nucleus. Moreover, we report increased rs-FC in regions involved in associative memory and multisensory processing, such as the calcarine and angular gyrus with a dosage-dependent effect on this modulation. Secondly, we examine brain volumetric development and whether brain volumes are associated with cognitive and behavioural long-term outcomes. We find that perinatal risk factors, such as asphyxia and sepsis have an impact on brain tissue volume. We also find that cognitive and behavioural outcomes are strongly associated with parental SES and that brain tissue volumes at TEA have moderate predictive power. Next, inspired by studies that have characterized the progression of neurodegenerative diseases, we employ an advanced technique to unveil the sequence of biological events along the course of prematurity. Our novel findings might be of clinical use as they allow more targeted early interventions aiming to improve long-term outcomes. Finally, we propose a framework that enables the spectral graph theory analysis of the functional connectome at the voxel level. Our results indicate the presence of both functional gradients and community structure revealing fine-grained connectivity patterns. The proposed framework opens a new avenue for spectral graph theory research at the voxel level.

EPFL2021

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Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR) reflects the capacity of blood vessels to adjust their caliber in order to maintain a steady supply of brain perfusion, and it may provide a sensitive disease biomarker. Measurement of the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response to a hypercapnia-inducing breath-hold (BH) task has been frequently used to map CVR noninvasively using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). However, the best modeling approach for the accurate quantification of CVR maps remains an open issue. Here, we compare and optimize Fourier models of the BOLD response to a BH task with a preparatory inspiration, and assess the test-retest reproducibility of the associated CVR measurements, in a group of 10 healthy volunteers studied over two fMRI sessions. Linear combinations of sine-cosine pairs at the BH task frequency and its successive harmonics were added sequentially in a nested models approach, and were compared in terms of the adjusted coefficient of determination and corresponding variance explained (VE) of the BOLD signal, as well as the number of voxels exhibiting significant BOLD responses, the estimated CVR values, and their test-retest reproducibility. The brain average VE increased significantly with the Fourier model order, up to the 3rd order. However, the number of responsive voxels increased significantly only up to the 2nd order, and started to decrease from the 3rd order onwards. Moreover, no significant relative underestimation of CVR values was observed beyond the 2nd order. Hence, the 2nd order model was concluded to be the optimal choice for the studied paradigm. This model also yielded the best test-retest reproducibility results, with intra-subject coefficients of variation of 12 and 16% and an intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.74. In conclusion, our results indicate that a Fourier series set consisting of a sine-cosine pair at the BH task frequency and its two harmonics is a suitable model for BOLD fMRI CVR measurements based on a BH task with preparatory inspiration, yielding robust estimates of this important physiological parameter. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Elsevier2016

Methods for functional connectivity and morphometry in neonatal neuroimaging to study neurodevelopment.

Serafeim Loukas

EPFL2021

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Elsevier2016