Check out some of the papers that were recently published by DMCBH members:
Judy Illes: Online community discourse on spinal cord injury research
Journal: Journal of Communication in Healthcare
Social media and online platforms can provide useful insights into public perceptions of spinal cord injury (SCI) research. Researchers gathered Reddit posts about SCI interventions and treatments, analyzing a total of 994 comments from 24 posts. Comments were generally neutral in tone and focused on scientific progress, study details, and ethical implications. Ethics-related comments focused on agency, accessibility, and beneficence. The SCI community actively uses Reddit to seek information about research and interventions.
Judy Illes: The risk of neurotechnology as an instrument of colonialism
Journal: Brain Communications
Neurotechnology offers promising alternatives to pharmacological and behavioural interventions through systems that can record brain signals or stimulate the brain and spinal cord. Historically, little research has been done on how this technology may beneficially or dangerously reshape Indigenous communities, whose identities are deeply rooted in traditional beliefs about brain and mind. Traditional beliefs may focus more on wellness than disease, and rapid advancement of neurotechnology may threaten traditional Indigenous practices. The authors emphasize the importance of moving away from a largely Western lens and taking a proactive approach to ensure that neurotechnology does not become an instrument of colonialism.
Journal: Science Advances
In the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, impaired metabolism and functional connectivity of the retrosplenial cortex strongly predict future cognitive impairments. Using mouse models, researchers discovered early, sex-dependent alterations in parvalbumin-interneuron transcriptomic profiles. This corresponded with changes in activity which were sufficient to induce cognitive impairments and dysregulate the retrosplenial cortex. Correspondingly, fMRI scans from patients with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease showed similar sex-dependent dysregulation in retrosplenial cortex functional connectivity. Postmortem tissue from those with Alzheimer’s disease additionally showed a loss of parvalbumin interneurons. Importantly, stimulating parvalbumin interneurons in the retrosplenial cortex reversed cognitive deficits in mice, opening new therapeutic strategies.
Howard Feldman, Cheryl Wellington: Prognostic value of plasma biomarkers for informing clinical trial design in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease
Journal: Alzheimer’s research and therapy
This study evaluated the prognostic value of plasma biomarkers in a clinical trial of mild-to-moderate AD. Elevated baseline plasma Neurofilament light (NfL) predicted more rapid clinical decline and MRI volume loss in patients. Moreover, increasing plasma NfL concentration over time was associated with worsening on Clinical Dementia Rating sum of box scores. Plasma NfL is an easily accessible biomarker that may enhance the design of clinical trials in mild-to-moderate AD.
Journal: BMC Psychology
Loot boxes in modern video games share many features with conventional gambling products. This study investigated whether loot box engagement led to increased risk of gambling behaviour at a 6-month follow-up in an online sample of young adults that play video games from British Columbia. Researchers found that young adults who spend money on loot boxes in-game may be at an elevated risk for real money gambling.
Mahmoud Pouladi: PRMT5 promotes full-length HTT expression by repressing multiple proximal intronic polyadenylation sites
Journal: Nucleic Acids Research
A mutation in the Huntingtin (HTT) gene causes Huntington’s disease (HD) by expressing a polyglutamine-expanded form of the HTT protein. This triggers cellular and biochemical pathologies leading to cognitive, motor, and psychiatric symptoms in HD patients. This study identified PRMT5 as a novel regulator of HTT mRNA splicing and alternative polyadenylation. PMRT5 may lower HTT protein levels through effects on the splicing of HTT introns 9 and 10. Researchers proposed that PRMT5-mediated regulation of intronic polyadenylation, premature termination and cleavage of HTT mRNA modulates HTT expression and plays an important role in neuronal differentiation. PRMT5 inhibition may be a novel way to lower HTT mRNA and protein levels, with potential implications for treating Huntington’s disease.
Helen Tremlett: Multi-state modelling in long-term follow-up studies, with application to a multiple sclerosis cohort
Journal: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology
Although many outcomes are relevant when studying diseases, most studies on drug efficacy investigate a drug’s effect on only a single outcome. Multistate modeling techniques take a broader view and allow the drug’s effects on multiple types of events to be quantified, which can clarify the impact of the drug. This paper applies multistate modeling to the healthcare data of BC residents living with multiple sclerosis. In doing so, the association between drugs that are prescribed to treat multiple sclerosis and three outcomes were explored: the frequency of hospitalizations, the lengths of hospital visits, and the chances of dying (inside and out of the hospital). Additionally, the researchers investigated the impact of these drugs for individuals living with comorbidities.
Helen Tremlett: Higher healthcare use before paediatric multiple sclerosis onset: a nationwide cohort study
Journal: Brain Communications
Evidence of increased healthcare use before pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis (MS) suggests a prodromal phase, yet little is currently known of its duration or features. Healthcare use was higher primarily in the 1 to 10 years before pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis versus a matched cohort, suggestive of a prodromal phase. During this period, the pediatric-onset multiple sclerosis cohort was more often identified as having ill-defined signs/symptoms, neoplasms, and skin-related issues.
Deborah Giaschi, Hee Yeon Im: Large-scale functional networks underlying visual attention
Journal: Neuroscience and biobehavioural reviews
Attention networks are loosely defined as the regions of the brain which interact to control behaviour during attentional tasks, but the specific definition of attention networks varies between research programs. The Attention Network Task was designed to exemplify three aspects of attention, alerting, orienting, and executive control, using a visual cueing paradigm. It is debated whether there exists a unified system of networks which underlies attention independently of other cognitive and sensory processing systems. Researchers reviewed the evidence for an attention system within the domain of visual attention. Neuroimaging research using fMRI, EEG, MEG, and others across a variety of tasks attributed to attention, visual cueing, visual search, and divided attention, was compared. This concluded with a discussion on the limitations of an independent “attention system” for describing how the brain flexibly controls many abilities attributed to visual attention.
Trisha Chakrabarty, Sophia Frangou, Lakshmi Yatham: Individual-level brain phenotypes in first-episode mania: normative modelling of brain morphometry and brainAGE
Journal: BJPsych Open
Bipolar disorder often comes with brain morphological changes, particularly in chronic cases. This study examined first episode mania (FEM) to quantify these changes in the early stages of the disorder. Regional morphometry and local brain-ageing metrics in FEM patients aligned with normative ranges, suggesting minimal abnormalities in early bipolar disorder. Researchers also observed subtle delays in global brain ageing which may reflect variation based on the age of onset, which can be further explored in future research.
Michael Gordon: Functional imaging and connectome analyses reveal organizing principles of taste circuits in Drosophila
Journal: Current Biology
Taste plays diverse roles in the life of a fruit fly – from feeding to locomotion, mating, and memory formation. As a result, taste responses are widely distributed across different circuits of the fly brain, leading to complexities which complicate investigations into unifying principles of taste processing and coding. The present study combined information from the whole-brain connectome with functional calcium imaging to examine the neural representation of taste at early stages of processing. Researchers found that the majority of taste-responsive cells in the suboesophageal zone, including local interneurons and projection neurons targeting the superior protocerebrum, are predicted to encode a single taste modality. Results revealed deeper insights into the fruit fly taste circuits.
Ruth Grunau, Alexander Weber: Assessing Semiregional Cerebral Oxygen Consumption (CMRO2) in Preterm Neonates: A Quantitative MRI Cohort Study With Exploratory Analysis of Respiratory Support
Journal: NMR in Biomedicine
Developing a noninvasive method for measuring oxygen consumption in the brain for preterm infants is critical for assessing brain development and neuronal injury. This study presented a multi-modal MRI technique and analysis pipeline producing whole-brain semi regional maps, which they additionally employed in a cohort study. This cohort study investigated how the duration of various respiratory supports in very preterm infants affects cerebral blood flow (CBF) and the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2). CMRO2 and CBF were positively correlated with days on noninvasive respiratory support and negatively correlated with days in room air. Using this novel method, CBF and CMRO2 values aligned closely with literature values. These exploratory findings suggested that noninvasive respiratory support is associated with higher CBF and CMRO2, highlighting its potential impact on neonatal brain oxygenation and development.
Journal: Sensors
During the acute phase of traumatic brain injury (TBI), therapeutic management relies on continuous multimodal cerebral physiologic monitoring to detect and prevent secondary injury. These high-resolution data streams come from various invasive/non-invasive sensor technologies and can be different to integrate into management algorithms and prognostic models. This study uses the CAnadian High-Resolution TBI (CAHR-TBI) dataset to examine the impact of temporal resolution changes (1 min to 24 h) on autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) modeling for raw and derived cerebral physiologic signals. Findings show that both raw and derived indices exhibit intrinsic ARIMA components regardless of resolution. Ignoring these features risks compromising the significance of models developed from such data. This underscores the need for careful resolution considerations in temporal modeling for TBI care.
Journal: Neurobiology of disease
Alzheimer’s disease is associated with the formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the brain which disrupt neuronal communication. Abnormal activation of tau kinases (tauK) has been proposed as a major step in tau hyperphosphorylation and misfolding and subsequent formation of these tangles. However, evidence of tauK hyperactivation in actual AD brains is scarce and inconsistent. Using Western blot or selected reaction monitoring proteomics in postmortem dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and hippocampal samples, researchers evaluated tauK activation and tau peptides. The present data suggested that tau hyperphosphorylation, tangle deposition, and subsequent cognitive impairment do not rely on the aberrant activation of major tauKs. In addition, researchers found links between higher cortical CDK5/p25 and better working memory.
Martin McKeown, Silke Appel-Cresswell: EEG dynamical features during variable-intensity cycling exercise in Parkinson’s disease
Journal: Frontiers in human neuroscience
Exercise is increasingly recognized as an effective intervention for Parkinson’s disease, yet the optimal type and intensity of exercise is unclear. This study used electroencephalography (EEG) to explore potential neural markers that could be used to guide exercise intensity. Participants performed stationary pedaling exercises at 60RPM with resistance adjusted to target different heart rates. Researchers identified a statistically significant Multi-set Canonical Correlation Analysis (MCCA) showing a monotonic relationship with pedaling intensity. As intensity increased, rhythmic engagement, sustained neural activation and predictability increased while variability was reduced. Parkinson’s disease patients showed more rigid, consistent response patterns compared to healthy controls. Using EEG-derived markers is a feasible way to track exercise intensity in Parkinson’s disease patients and could be used to guide targeted therapeutic strategies to maximize the benefits of exercise.
Helen Tremlett: Health care use preceding pediatric multiple sclerosis: A population-based study from Ontario, Canada
Journal: Multiple Sclerosis Journal
This study aimed to compare rates and reasons for health care use in youth with and without multiple sclerosis (MS), using population-based administrative data to investigate pediatric-onset MS. As of 6 years pre-index, the MS youth had higher physician services use and hospitalizations than those without MS. Youth with pediatric onset MS showed increased healthcare use from birth, with a prodromal phase that may emerge 6 years before the onset of typical symptoms.
Irene Vavasour, Shannon Kolind: Characterization of Portable Ultra-Low Field MRI Scanners for Multi-Center Structural Neuroimaging
Journal: Human Brain Mapping
Portable ultra-low field MRI systems can be used in diverse settings like intensive care units and remote medical facilities, improving the accessibility of MRI technology. The UNITY project is an international neuroimaging network deploying portable MRI systems globally to expand research on brain development. This study introduced the quality control framework used by the UNITY project to investigate the robustness of systems and how quality control metrics compare between sites and over time. Results indicated that the image quality was robust to the varying operational environment (electromagnetic noise interference and temperature). The Larmor frequency, important for accuracy, was significantly correlated to room temperature, as was image noise and contrast. This study demonstrated that portable ultra-low field MRI systems can be deployed in a variety of environments and still produce robust results.
Journal: Journal of science and medicine in sport
This study investigated the associations between movement (physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep duration), global and hippocampal amyloid beta levels, and executive function in cognitively normal older adults. In Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid beta clumps together to form plaques which disrupt cell function. No significant associations emerged between any movement behaviours and total cerebral amyloid beta levels or executive function. However, higher levels of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity may be protective against hippocampal amyloid accumulation in older males.
Journal: Journal of Neurotrauma
The current classification of traumatic brain injury (TBI) primarily uses the Glasgow Coma Scale to categorize injuries as mild, moderate, or severe. However, this system overlooks variations in injury severity, clinical needs, and prognosis. In 2024, a new clinical, biomarker, imaging, and modifier (CBI-M) framework was developed with input from the Clinical/Symptoms working group (CSWG). The CSWG was composed of both clinical and non-clinical experts informed by individuals with lived experience and public consultation. They concluded that the Glasgow Coma Scale remains central to TBI characterization but must include detailed scoring of eye, verbal, and motor components, with identification of confounding factors and clear documentation of non-assessable components. More variables like injury mechanisms and post traumatic amnesia should be recorded, and the CSWG recommended that disease progression should be monitored over 14 days. Further research is needed to validate and refine these guidelines, ensuring they can be effectively integrated into the CBI-M framework and clinical practice.
Noah Silverberg: Somatic Symptom Disorder After Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Journal: The Journal of head trauma rehabilitation
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) may precede somatic symptom disorder (SSD), a mental health condition where patients have excessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors relating to physical symptoms which may or may not be linked to a medical condition. This focus on symptoms such as pain or shortness of breath may lead to major distress or disrupt normal functioning. This secondary analysis of a clinical trial examined the prevalence, correlates, predictors and functional impact of SSD after mTBI. 15-27% of the sample met criteria for SSD at 6 months post injury and reported more pain and post-concussion symptoms. They also had a higher likelihood of comorbid major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders. SSD after mTBI was associated with an increased burden of symptoms, comorbidity and disability, although early detection may be feasible.
