Science News about Imaging

Pattern Recognition Technology May Help Predict Future Mental Illness in Teens

Science Update • April 02, 2012
Computer programs that automatically spot patterns in data may help predict a person’s risk for future mental disorders.

Brain Wiring a No-Brainer?

Press Release • March 29, 2012
Researcher Van Wedeen MD and colleagues report new evidence of the brain’s elegant simplicity March 30, 2012 in the journal Science. New high resolution scans reveal an astonishingly simple 3D grid structure.

Friendly-to-a-Fault, Yet Tense: Personality Traits Traced in Brain

Press Release • March 19, 2012
NIH scientists have used three different types of brain imaging to pinpoint a circuit hub buried deep in the front center of the brain in people with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder characterized by overly gregarious yet anxious behavior.

$40 Million Awarded to Trace Human Brain’s Connections

Press Release • September 15, 2010
The National Institutes of Health today awarded grants totaling $40 million to map the human brain’s connections in high resolution. Better understanding of such connectivity promises improved diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders.

Study Shows Possibilities for Predicting How Patients Will Respond to Antidepressants

Science Update • July 22, 2010
In a study of an experimental treatment for major depression, pretreatment testing to probe the function of a specific brain center predicted how patients would respond to ketamine, a medication that can lift depression rapidly in some people.

Imaging Reveals Abnormal Brain Growth in Toddlers with Fragile X

Science Update • June 08, 2010
Differences in brain growth patterns between preschool-aged boys with Fragile X syndrome (FXS), the most common cause of inherited intellectual disability, and their healthy peers suggest that the disorder may affect brain development both before and after birth, according to NIMH-funded researchers. In addition, their findings indicate ages 1–5 are an important window for better understanding the effects of FXS on brain development. The study was published May 18, 2010, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Imaging Studies Help Pinpoint Child Bipolar Circuitry  

Science Update • April 08, 2010
A series of imaging studies are revealing that the brain works differently in youth with bipolar disorder (BD) than in chronically irritable children who are often diagnosed with pediatric BD.

Family History of Depression Alters Brain’s Response to Reward and Risk

Science Update • April 06, 2010
Girls at high risk for depression but without current or past clinically significant symptoms showed abnormal brain function related to anticipating and receiving either a reward or loss, according to a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

Behavioral Training Improves Connectivity and Function in the Brain

Press Release • December 09, 2009
Children with poor reading skills who underwent an intensive, six-month training program to improve their reading ability showed increased connectivity in a particular brain region, in addition to making significant gains in reading, according to a study funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The study was published in the Dec. 10, 2009, issue of Neuron.

Kids’ Brain Development Charted as They Grow Up

Science Update • November 03, 2009
A landmark, multisite NIH-funded neuroimaging study of brain development in healthy, normally-developing children has posted its third release of data. This is the first release from the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study to include data from very young children – birth to 4 years old – and snapshots of brain chemistry at key developmental milestones. The data is accessible to qualified researchers via the NIH Pediatric MRI Data Repository website.

Brain Emotion Circuit Sparks as Teen Girls Size Up Peers

Press Release • July 15, 2009
What is going on in teenagers’ brains as their drive for peer approval begins to eclipse their family affiliations? Brain scans of teens sizing each other up reveal an emotion circuit activating more in girls as they grow older, but not in boys. The study by Daniel Pine, M.D., of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of National Institutes of Health, and colleagues, shows how emotion circuitry diverges in the male and female brain during a developmental stage in which girls are at increased risk for developing mood and anxiety disorders.

Thinning Tissue in Right Half of Brain Signals Increased Risk of Inherited Depression

Science Update • May 08, 2009
In cases of familial depression, changes in tissue thickness in key brain structures in the right half of the brain may increase a person’s risk for developing depression, according to NIMH-funded researchers. Similar changes in the left half of the brain were linked to the severity of a person’s existing depression or anxiety symptoms. Based on their findings, the researchers proposed a possible mechanism for how these brain changes affect depression risk in the April 14, 2009, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Flow of Potassium Into Cells Implicated in Schizophrenia

Press Release • May 05, 2009
A study on schizophrenia has implicated machinery that maintains the flow of potassium in cells and revealed a potential molecular target for new treatments. Expression of a previously unknown form of a key such potassium channel was found to be 2.5 fold higher than normal in the brain memory hub of people with the chronic mental illness and linked to a hotspot of genetic variation.

Brain Scanning Gives Clues to How Genes Shape Behavior, Disease Risk

Science Update • February 27, 2009
In an experiment in which people viewed changing images of slot machines, inherited differences in brain chemistry predicted the magnitude of responses in the brain to the prospect and receipt of reward.

Impaired Brain Activity Underlies Impulsive Behaviors in Women with Bulimia

Science Update • January 12, 2009
Women with bulimia nervosa (BN), when compared with healthy women, showed different patterns of brain activity while doing a task that required self-regulation. This abnormality may underlie binge eating and other impulsive behaviors that occur with the eating disorder, according to an article published in the January 2009 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Anxious and Depressed Teens and Adults: Same Version of Mood Gene, Different Brain Reactions

Science Update • December 02, 2008
An NIMH study using brain imaging shows that some anxious and depressed adolescents react differently from adult patients when looking at frightening faces.

Anxious and Healthy Adolescents Respond Differently to an Anxiety-provoking Situation

Science Update • November 05, 2008
Brain scans show heightened activity among anxious adolescents exposed to an anxiety-provoking situation when compared with normal controls, according to an NIMH study published in the November 2008 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Brain’s Response to Scary Faces Imaged Faster Than You Can Say “Boo!”

Science Update • October 31, 2008
Scientists have captured the split-second workings of the brain’s fear circuitry in people viewing frightful faces.

Brain's Wiring Stunted, Lopsided in Childhood Onset Schizophrenia

Science Update • October 30, 2008
Growth of the brain's long distance connections, called white matter, is stunted and lopsided in children who develop psychosis before puberty, NIMH researchers have discovered.

Social Phobia Patients Have Heightened Reactions to Negative Comments

Science Update • October 22, 2008
In a study using functional brain imaging, NIMH scientists found that when people with generalized social phobia were presented with a variety of verbal comments about themselves and others ("you are ugly," or "he's a genius," for example) they had heightened brain responses only to negative comments about themselves.

Millisecond Brain Signals Predict Response to Fast-Acting Antidepressant

Press Release • October 02, 2008
Images of the brain's fastest signals reveal an electromagnetic marker that predicts a patient's response to a fast-acting antidepressant, researchers have discovered.

Emotion-Regulating Circuit Weakened in Borderline Personality Disorder

Science Update • October 02, 2008
Differences in the working tissue of the brain, called grey matter, have been linked to impaired functioning of an emotion-regulating circuit in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD).

Why “My Get Up and Go Has Got Up and Went”

Science Update • September 15, 2008
If, as the song laments, our "get up and go" fades as we get older, it may stem from aging-related changes in a brain reward circuit.

Borderline Personality Disorder: Brain Differences Related to Disruptions in Cooperation in Relationships

Science Update • August 12, 2008
Different patterns of brain activity in people with borderline personality disorder were associated with disruptions in the ability to recognize social norms or modify behaviors that likely result in distrust and broken relationships, according to an NIMH-funded study published online in the August 8, 2008 issue of Science.

Depression Patients’ Brain Circuitry Makes Them Vulnerable to Relapse

Science Update • August 01, 2008
Using brain imaging, NIMH researchers have produced direct evidence that people prone to depression -- even when they're feeling well -- have abnormal mood-regulating brain circuitry.

Abnormal Surge in Brain Development Occurs in Teens and Young Adults with Schizophrenia

Science Update • July 08, 2008
Schizophrenia may occur, in part, because brain development goes awry during adolescence and young adulthood, when the brain is eliminating some connections between cells as a normal part of maturation, results of a study suggest. The new report appears online July 8, 2008 in Molecular Psychiatry.

Anxious Youth Have Disturbed Brain Responses When Looking at Angry Faces

Science Update • June 20, 2008
When looking at angry faces so quickly that they are hardly aware of seeing them, youth with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) have unchecked activity in the brain’s fear center, say NIMH researchers.

The Maturing Brain Parallels its Evolution

Science Update • June 05, 2008
Evolutionarily older areas of the human brain that mature earliest follow a simple, straight-line growth pattern.

Imaging Identifies Brain Regions and Chemicals Underlying Mood Disorders; May Lead to Better Treatments

Science Update • May 06, 2008
WASHINGTON, DC, May 6 — Recently developed imaging techniques allow the mapping of the brain circuits and chemical systems believed responsible for a range of mood abnormalities including depression and bipolar disorder, and hold promise for improved treatments, scientists say.

Human Brain Appears “Hard-Wired” for Hierarchy

Press Release • April 23, 2008
Human imaging studies have for the first time identified brain circuitry associated with social status, according to researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) of the National Institutes of Health. They found that different brain areas are activated when a person moves up or down in a pecking order – or simply views perceived social superiors or inferiors. Circuitry activated by important events responded to a potential change in hierarchical status as much as it did to winning money.