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Whole-brain analyses: positive correlations between the firstperson perspective score and GM volume in the AMT group and in the TEMPau group (p \ 0.001, uncorrected; extent threshold of 100 voxels). Right precuneus and right posterior superior temporal
Source publication
Visual perspective (i.e. first-person versus third-person perspective) during autobiographical memory (AM) retrieval plays a role in both emotional regulation and self-related processes. However, its neural underpinnings remain mostly unexplored. Visual perspective during AM retrieval was assessed in two independent datasets of 45 and 20 healthy yo...
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Humans are inherently social beings that benefit from their perceptional capability to embody another point of view. This thesis examines this capability, termed perspective taking, using a mixed forward/reverse engineering approach. While previous approaches were limited to known, artificial environments, the proposed approach results in a percept...
Abstract Humans are highly skilled in social reasoning, e.g., inferring thoughts of others. This mentalizing ability systematically recruits brain regions such as Temporo-Parietal Junction (TPJ), Precuneus (PC) and medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC). Further, posterior mPFC is associated with allocentric mentalizing and conflict monitoring while anter...
Deficits in amnesic patients suggest that spatial cognition and episodic memory are intimately related. Among the different types of spatial processing, the allocentric, relying on the hippocampal formation, and the egocentric-updated, relying on parieto-temporal connections have both been considered to functionally underlie episodic memory encodin...
Citations
... Furthermore, another brain region closely associated with ID and MDD identified in this study is the anterior cingulate cortex. The anterior cingulate cortex is linked to selfrepresentation, spatial awareness, and autobiographical memory [30,31]. Notably, MDD patients exhibit impaired self-referential processing [32]. ...
Purpose
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Insomnia Disorder (ID) are prevalent psychiatric conditions often occurring concurrently, leading to substantial impairment in daily functioning. Understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of these disorders and their comorbidity is crucial for developing effective interventions. This study aims to analyze changes in functional connectivity within attention networks and default mode networks in patients with depression and insomnia.
Methods
The functional connectivity alterations in individuals with MDD, ID, comorbid MDD and insomnia (iMDD), and healthy controls (HC) were assessed from a cohort of 174 participants. They underwent rs-fMRI scans, demographic assessments, and scale evaluations for depression and sleep quality. Functional connectivity analysis was conducted using region-of-interest (ROI) and whole-brain methods.
Results
The MDD and iMDD groups exhibited higher Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) scores compared to HC and ID groups (P < 0.001). Both ID and MDD groups displayed enhanced connectivity between the left and right orbital frontal cortex compared to HC (P < 0.05), while the iMDD group showed reduced connectivity compared to HC and ID groups (P < 0.05). In the left insula, reduced connectivity with the right medial superior frontal gyrus was observed across patient groups compared to HC (P < 0.05), with the iMDD group showing increased connectivity compared to MDD (P < 0.05). Moreover, alterations in functional connectivity between the left thalamus and left temporal pole were found in iMDD compared to HC and MDD (P < 0.05). Correlation analyses revealed associations between abnormal connectivity and symptom severity in MDD and ID groups.
Conclusions
Our findings demonstrate distinct patterns of altered functional connectivity in individuals with MDD, ID, and iMDD compared to healthy controls. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the pathophysiology of depression and insomnia, which could be used as a reference for the diagnosis and treatments of these patients.
... In Alzheimer's Disease (AD), the precuneus and fusiform gyrus are pivotal regions implicated in the neurodegenerative cascade leading to cognitive impairment and functional decline. The precuneus serves as a central hub for various cognitive processes, including episodic memory retrieval, visuospatial processing, and selfreferential cognition (4,5,6,7,8). Numerous neuroimaging studies have consistently revealed significant atrophy, hypometabolism within the precuneus, and reduced connectivity with the default mode network in individuals with AD (9,10,11,12,13,14) particularly in the early stages of the disease (15). ...
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is acknowledged as one of the most common types of dementia. Various brain regions were found to associated with AD pathology. Precuneus and fusiform gyrus are two notable regions whose role has been implicated in cognitive function. However, a thorough investigation was lacking to link these regions with AD pathology. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive radiomic based investigation using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to link precuneus and fusiform gyrus with AD pathology. We obtained T1 weighted MR scans of AD (n=133), MCI (n=311) and CN (n=195) subjects from ADNI database at three different time points (i.e., 0, 6 and 12 months). Then, we conducted statistical analysis to compare these features among AD, MCI and CN subjects. We found significant decline in gray matter volume (GMV) and cortical thickness of both precuneus and fusiform gyrus in AD as compared to the MCI and CN subjects. Further, we utilized these features to develop machine learning classifiers to classify AD from MCI and CN subjects and achieved accuracy of 97.78% and 94.41% respectively. These results strengthen the connection of precuneus and fusiform gyrus with AD pathology and opens a new avenue of AD research.
... More specifically, an area deep in the precuneus, midway between the two main intraparietal sulci, has been found to be very involved in integrating visuospatial information with memory (Bruner & Iriki, 2016;Cavanna & Trimble, 2006;Marguiles et al, 2009;Zhang & Chiang-shan, 2012). According to Freton and colleagues, this parietal/precuneus area of the brain represents the "eye of the self" (Freton et al., 2014; also quoted in Bruner & Iriki, 2016, p. 101). As Bruner and colleagues (2017) have indicated: ...
... More specifically, an area deep in the precuneus, midway between the two main intraparietal sulci, has been found to be very involved in integrating visuospatial information with memory (Bruner & Iriki, 2016;Cavanna & Trimble, 2006;Marguiles et al, 2009;Zhang & Chiang-shan, 2012). According to Freton and colleagues, this parietal/precuneus area of the brain represents the "eye of the self" (Freton et al., 2014; also quoted in Bruner & Iriki, 2016, p. 101). As Bruner and colleagues (2017) have indicated: ...
Recent neuropaleontological research suggests that the parietal lobe has increased in size as much as the frontal lobes in Homo Sapiens over the past 150,000 years, but has not provided a neuropsychological explanation for the evolution of human socialization or the development of religion. Drawing from several areas of research, (i.e., neurodevelopment, neuropsychology, paleoneurology, cognitive science, archeology, and anthropology), we argue that parietal evolution in Homo sapiens integrated sensations and mental processes into a more integrated subjective “sense of self”. This enhanced self advanced prosocial traits (e.g., increased empathy, greater social bonding, enhanced theory of mind capacities), promoting more effective socialization skills (e.g., parenting, group cooperation). Conversely, when this enhanced sense of self became inhibited, powerful experiences of self-transcendence occurred. We believe these potent selfless experiences became increasingly sought after though ritual means (e.g., music, dance, vision quests, spirit travel), providing the foundations for the development of shamanism and religion.
... Decreasing pCun-mPFC rsFC would not be a normal brain network pattern depending on negative automatic thoughts, since individuals with post-traumatic-stress disorder show a decline in rsFC between the pCun and dorsal lateral PFC (Olson et al., 2019). The pCun and the mPFC contribute to self-referential processing, autobiographical memory, and mental imagery (Cavanna and Trimble, 2006;Freton et al., 2014;Gusnard et al., 2001;Northoff et al., 2006). This internal mentation makes the tendency of trauma sufferers to be hypervigilant to the negative aspects of ambiguous events (Phillips et al., 2010;Steinberg et al., 2003). ...
Background
Emotional abuse during childhood and adolescence is thought to be associated with the brain; however, the neural mechanism underlying the cognitive process remains unknown. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the mediating effect of negative automatic thoughts on the relationship between emotional abuse and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) during adolescence.
Method
Our community sample included 54 adolescents aged 13–17 years in the statistical analysis. Resting-state functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was performed, while emotional abuse and negative automatic thoughts were assessed using self-reported scales. A mediation analysis was used to assess the contributions of early traumatic events and negative automatic thoughts to resting functional connectivity.
Result
Higher negative automatic thoughts were associated with lower connectivity in the context of greater emotional abuse (i.e., suppression effect). Thus, the relationships between emotional abuse and connectivity in the precuneus (pCun)-medial prefrontal cortex, parahippocampal cortex-extrastriate cortex, and temporal cortex-temporal pole were decreased by negative automatic thoughts. In contrast, functional connections in the pCun-pCun, pCun-precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, and nucleus accumbens-somatomotor areas were strongly mediated when emotionally abused adolescents reported a high tendency for negative automatic thoughts.
Conclusion
Negative automatic thoughts strengthened the relationship between emotional abuse and rsFC. These findings highlight the underlying cognitive processing of the traumatic event-neural system, supporting the use of cognitive therapy for post-traumatic symptoms.
... Instead, higher RRS scores were associated with reduced cortical surface area in the right precuneus. This brain region has been previously linked to episodic memory (Ahmed et al., 2018), and autobiographical memory in particular (Freton et al., 2014;Sreekumar et al., 2018), along with attention to self-related processes (Zhao et al., 2018). These links may point to a role for this region in the focus on self-related thoughts that is seen in rumination. ...
Rumination is a common symptom in major depressive disorder (MDD) and has been linked to risk for that disorder, its prognosis, and relapse likelihood. Previous work has linked individual differences in rumination to structural properties in a variety of brain regions. Some of these regions, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), have also been highlighted as being altered in MDD, suggesting a connection between structural changes and ruminative symptoms. Although informative, such localised relations have some limitations in the context of a network view of the brain. To further investigate rumination-related structural changes in depression and to situate these within potential functional networks, we acquired structural data from patients with MDD (n = 32) and controls (n = 69). Analysis of cortical grey-matter identified group differences in the dlPFC that were, however, not related to rumination. Instead, rumination was correlated with grey-matter properties in the right precuneus. Using normative functional connectivity analysis on a large independent sample, we show that these two regions are interconnected. It was further shown that the rumination-related precuneus region is highly connected with networks associated with processes such as executive function, autobiographical memory, and visual perception. Notably, each of these processes has been connected to rumination. These results suggest that rumination in depression may be linked to focal structural changes that disrupt a distributed functional network.
... The possibility of flexibly retrieving our memories using a first-person or a third-person perspective (1PP or 3PP) has been extensively investigated in episodic memory research (Eich, Nelson, Leghari, & Handy, 2009;Freton et al., 2014;. With the introduction of Virtual Reality (VR), researchers have the opportunity to investigate whether different perspectives at the encoding stage influence recognition at the retrieval stage (for a recent review, see St. Jacques, 2019). ...
... Perhaps for the first time in adults with SCD, our results demonstrated strong inverse relationships be-tween processing speed and regional blood flow in specific areas of the brain associated with cognitive processing. We found individual correlations between regional brain blood flow and processing speed in: the middle frontal gyrus, which serves as a circuit-breaker to interrupt ongoing endogenous attentional processes in the dorsal network and reorient attention to an exogenous stimulus [28]; the precuneus cortex which is often implicated in the sense of self and agency, autobiographical memory, spatial function, and navigation [29,30]; the frontal orbital cortex, which is a hub for sensory integration, the modulation of autonomic reactions, and participation in learning, prediction, and decision making for emotional and reward-related behaviors [31]; the parietal operculum cortex, with functions that include sensory, motor, autonomic and cognitive processing [32], and; the temporal fusiform cortex, which plays a role in processing the printed forms of words [33]. Corroborating these findings was our finding of a positive correlation between whole brain CBF and blood flow to the Middle Frontal Gyrus, Inferior Frontal Gyrus, and pars triangularis. ...
Background and purpose:
Compared to healthy controls, adult patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) are anemic, and therefore have higher cardiac output and Cerebral Blood Flow (CBF) to maintain brain oxygenation. They also demonstrate comparatively more cognitive deficits due to either overt strokes or silent cerebral ischemia. However, there are few correlative studies between CBF and cognitive deficits, specifically processing speed in SCD. Such studies are important to develop biomarkers of central brain processing and ischemia for diagnosis, prognosis, and evaluating the effectiveness of potential interventions. This pilot cross-sectional study tested the hypotheses that adults with SCD and elevated CBF demonstrate lower central brain processing speed than controls on average and that CBF is inversely correlated with processing speed.
Methods:
We conducted a pilot cross-sectional study to assess the relation-ships between CBF, central brain processing speed, and hemoglobin levels in asymptomatic adults with SCD and controls from an urban academic medical center. MRI acquisitions at 3T consisted of 2D phase-contrast quantitative arteriograms (Qflow) of the bilateral internal carotid and vertebral arteries and 3D pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) of the brain. Participants were patients with SCD (hemoglobin [Hb]SS, [Hb] SBetaThal°, or [Hb]SC) aged 22-52 years of African American descent (N=7) or community controls (Hb AA) (n=3). Processing speed was assessed as an in-direct functional marker of ischemia using a recommended test from the NIH Toolbox for Assessment of Neurological and Behavioral Function, the Pattern Comparison Processing Speed Test. t-tests were used to compare means of CBF, hemoglobin, and cognition between SCD patients and healthy controls. Among SCD patients only multivariate correla-tions were used to evaluate relationships between brain perfusion in specific brain regions vs. processing speed and CBF. The significance level was set at p≤0.05.
Results:
Adults with SCD reported higher CBF compared to healthy con-trols (72.15±28.90 vs. 47.23±12.30 ml/min/100g, p=0.04), and lower hemoglobin concentration (8.64±2.33 vs. 13.33±0.58, p=0.001). Heart rate in SCD patients was higher than in controls (86.29±1.37 vs. 74.00±2.10, p=0.04). Patients with SCD demonstrated lower processing speed (96.14±21.04 vs.123±13.74, p=0.02) than controls. Among adult patients with SCD, perfusion in specific regions of the brain showed an inverse relationship with processing speed, as did whole-brain CBF (p=0.0325).
Conclusion:
These findings, although from a small sample, lend a degree of validity to the claim that processing speed is slower in people with SCD than in controls and that CBF is significantly higher in SCD patients com-pared to controls. The results also lend credence to the finding that the degree of processing speed deficiencies among adults with SCD is correlated with the degree of elevated CBF, which is known to correspond with the degree of anemia associated with SCD.
... In terms of the brain structure, the precuneus is also closely related to "the self". For instance, Freton et al. (2013) found that the right precuneus volume was positively associated with one's tendency to spontaneously recall memories from the first-person perspective. In addition, the surface area of the precuneus was confirmed to have a close relationship with individuals' cognitions and behaviors. ...
Authenticity, as a positive trait, is confirmed to be beneficial for psychopathology prevention and human well-being. However, there is no investigation regarding the neuro-anatomical basis of trait authenticity and how authenticity-linking brain morphometric variations are further related to individuals' anxiety symptoms. In this study, we examined these issues among 112 healthy adults by obtaining their brain morphometry with structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and assessing their trait authenticity and anxiety by self-reported measures. The correlation analyses showed that higher trait authenticity was associated with a larger surface area of the left precuneus, while self-alienation, an indicator of lower trait authenticity, was linked to a larger volume of the left amygdala. Further mediation analyses found that, after adjusting for control variables, trait authenticity mediated the relationship between the left precuneus surface area and anxiety, and self-alienation mediated the relationship between the left amygdala volume and anxiety. Overall, our study reveals that the left precuneus surface area and the left amygdala volume are neurostructural markers of trait authenticity and offers a brain-personality-symptom pathway to elaborate how these brain morphometry characteristics are further related to fewer anxiety symptoms via trait authenticity.
... key role in self-awareness, self-relevant information, and autobiographical memory 2,43-45 . Freton et al. 46 showed the role of the precuneus in egocentric spatial processing in which the first-person perspective was related to the anterior part of the right precuneus. Wu et al. 47 showed the anterior precuneus is relevant to the recoverable unconscious states as a cortical hub. ...
It is generally hypothesized that functional connectivity (FC) reflects the underlying structural connectivity (SC). The precuneus is associated with highly integrated cognitive functions. However, our understanding of the structural connections that could underlie them is limited. This study aimed to characterize the cortico-cortical connections by probabilistic tractography. The precuneus corresponds to the five cortical areas (7Am, PCV, 7Pm, 7m, POS2) on the HCP MMP atlas. We first conducted the atlas-based probabilistic tractography. The anterior part (7Am) was strongly connected to the sensorimotor region. The dorsal part (7Am, 7Pm) was highly connected with the adjacent parietal and temporal cortex, while the ventral part (PCV, 7m) showed strong connections with the adjacent posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex. The most posterior part (POS2) was explicitly connected to the visual cortex. In addition, there was a correlation between SC and resting-state fMRI connectivity (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient = 0.322 ± 0.019, p < 0.05 corrected at subject level). Collectively, the current study revealed the characteristic connectional profile of precuneus, which could shed light on the structural heterogeneity for the future functional analyses.
