Xiaoxia Du

East China Normal University | ECNU · Department of Physics

Background Although internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been included in the DSM-5 for approximately 10 years, debate remains regarding its existence and classification. Methods The current research incorporated three approaches. First, implicit association tests were used to examine for potential dissociation between wanting and liking in IGD. Sec...

Purpose Existing literature strongly supports the idea that children with primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) have a delayed brainstem maturation. However, the connection between pre-micturition arousal responses and brain functional connectivities is still not clearly defined. In light of this gap, our study investigated the correlation between the g...

Neurovascular coupling (NVC) provides new insights into migraine, a neurological disorder impacting over one billion people worldwide. This study compared NVC and cerebral blood flow (CBF) in patients with migraine without aura (MwoA) and healthy controls. About 55 MwoA patients in the interictal phase and 40 age‐ and sex‐matched healthy controls u...

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) subjects reported higher loneliness scores than healthy controls. However, the neural correlates underlying the association between loneliness and IGD remain unclear. Thus, the aim of this study was to explore the relationship between loneliness, online gaming addiction and brain structure. In the current study, struc...

Objective: This study sought to investigate brain responses to positive and negative events in individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) during real gaming as a direct assessment of the neural features of IGD. This investigation reflects the neural deficits in individuals with IGD while playing games, providing direct and effective targets f...

Background: The trigeminal vascular system is an important part of the anatomical and physiological basis of migraine. The effective connectivity (EC) among the regions of interest (ROIs) in the trigeminal vascular system involved in migraine without aura (MWoA) remains unclear. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 48 patients (mean [SD] age...

Purpose: Brain areas frequently implicated in language recovery after stroke comprise perilesional sites in the left hemisphere and homotopic regions in the right hemisphere. However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying language restoration are still largely unclear. Methods and materials: In the present study, we investigated the brain function...

Infant emotional stimuli can preferentially engage adults’ attention and provide valuable information essential for successful interaction between adults and infants. Exploring the neural processes of recognizing infant stimuli promotes better understandings of the mother-infant attachment mechanisms. Here, combining task-functional magnetic resona...

Background Studies have proven that individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) show impaired cognitive control over game craving; however, the neural mechanism underlying this process remains unclear. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the dynamic features of brain functional networks of individuals with IGD during rest, which...

Background and aims Sex differences in internet gaming disorder (IGD) remain unknown. Investigating sex-specific neural features that underlie the core risk factor (i.e., risk-taking) of IGD would help in understanding sex-specific vulnerabilities to IGD and advance sex-specific treatments and prevention for IGD. Methods 111 participants (28 IGD m...

Objective Previous neuroimaging studies have shown abnormal brain-bladder control network in children with primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE). The hippocampus, which has long been considered to be an important nerve center for memory and emotion, has also been confirmed to be activating during micturition in several human imaging studies. However, fe...

Somatic symp tom disorders (SSDs) are a group of psychiatric disorders characterized by persistent disproportionate concern and obsessive behaviors regarding physical conditions. Currently, SSDs lack effective treatments and their pathophysiology is unclear. In this paper, we aimed to examine microstructural abnormalities in the brains of patients...

Objective Primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) is a common developmental condition in school-aged children. The objective is to better understand the pathophysiology of PNE by using insula-centered resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC). Methods We recruited 66 right-handed participants in our analysis, 33 with PNE and 33 healthy control (HC) ch...

Background: In attempts to understand the migraine patients’ overall brain functional architecture, blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signals in the white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM) were considered in the current study. Migraine, a severe and multiphasic brain condition, is characterized by recurrent attacks of headaches. BOLD fluctuat...

Background and Purpose: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy caused by mutations in the NOTCH3 gene is a hereditary cerebral small vessel disease, manifesting with stroke, cognitive impairment, and mood disturbances. Functional or structural changes in the default mode network (DMN), which plays...

Background Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is a type of behavioral addiction characterized by poorly controlled and interfering patterns of game playing. Studies have suggested that the IGD is usually accompanied by increased desire or craving for gaming, suggesting that secondary rewards related to gaming may become more salient than those for prim...

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is one of the most common peripheral vestibular diseases. Since the peripheral vestibular system connects with the cerebellum via the brainstem, repeated episodic vertigo may result in progressive structural and functional changes in the cerebellum and brainstem. In the present work, voxel-based morphomet...

Animal models suggest transitions from non-addictive to addictive behavioral engagement are associated with ventral-to-dorsal striatal shifts. However, few studies have examined such features in humans, especially in internet gaming disorder (IGD), a proposed behavioral addiction. We recruited 418 subjects (174 with IGD; 244 with recreational game...

Background: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) caused by mutations in NOTCH3 gene is a hereditary cerebral small vessel disease, manifesting with stroke, cognitive impairment and mood disturbances. Functional or structural changes in the default mode network (DMN), which plays import...

Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of nocturnal enuresis have focused primarily on regional metrics in the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal ranging from 0.01 to 0.08 Hz. However, it remains unclear how local metrics show in sub-frequency band. 129 children with nocturnal enuresis (NE) and 37 healthy controls were...

Background The ability to control craving for games is very important to abstain from Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and abundant clinical evidence has suggested that craving dysregulation is the essential pathogenesis for IGD. However, the neural mechanism underlying this feature remains unclear. Methods Subjective evaluation and fMRI data from 4...

Primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) is characterized by a low cure rate and a high reoccurrence rate, since its underlying mechanism remains unclear. Based on the recent studies that thalamus plays an important role in waking up a sleeping person, here we further investigate the functional connectivity (FC) information between thalamus and other brain...

Background: Primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (PMNE) is a common disorder among school-age children. Previous research has suggested that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) is essential to maintain urine storage in bladder control. We hypothesized that children with PMNE have functional deficits in several brain regions, especially the PFC, durin...

Background: Individuals with internet gaming disorder (IGD) are generally characterized by impaired executive control, persistent game-craving, and excessive reward-seeking behaviors. However, the causal interactions within the frontostriatal circuits underlying these problematic behaviors remain unclear. Here, spectral dynamic causal modeling (sp...

Background: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) is a subcortical, inherited, cerebral small vessel disease. Several studies have revealed the involvement of specific cortical regions. However, the structural brain alterations and their clinical correlations remain largely undetermine...

Background: Somatic symptom disorders (SSDs) are common medical disorders characterized by various biological, social, and psychological pathogenic factors. Little is known about the neural correlations of SSD. Methods: In this study, we evaluated the dysfunction in 45 patients with SSD and in 43 controls by combining the regional homogeneity (ReHo...

Background Individual with internet gaming disorder (IGD) often experience a high level of loneliness, and neuroimaging studies have demonstrated that amygdala function is associated with both IGD and loneliness. However, the neurobiological basis underlying these relationships remains unclear. Methods In the current study, Granger causal analysis...

The experience of motherhood is one of the most salient events in a woman’s life. Motherhood is associated with a series of neurophysiological, psychological, and behavioral changes that allow women to better adapt to their new role as mothers. Infants communicate their needs and physiological states mainly through salient emotional expressions, an...

Background: Pregnancy constitutes a significant period in the lives of women, after which they often experience numerous crucial physiological and psychological changes. Functional neuroimaging studies have shown longitudinal changes in functional brain activity in mothers responding to infant-related stimuli. However, the structural changes that...

Background Migraine is a complex and disabling neurological disorder, and the exact neurological mechanisms remain unclear. Thalamus is considered the hub of the central processing and integration of nociceptive information, as well as the modulation of these processes. Method Forty‐eight migraineurs without aura (MWoAs) during the interictal phas...

Background and aims: Individuals with addictive disorders are usually characterized by impaired executive control, persistent craving and excessive reward-seeking. However, it is unclear whether there is a deviation in the connection pattern among the neural systems implicated in these problem behaviors. Methods: One hundred thirty-six online ga...

Background: Migraine is a severe and disabling brain disorder, and the exact neurological mechanisms remain unclear. Migraineurs have altered pain perception, and headache attacks disrupt their sensory information processing and sensorimotor integration. The altered functional connectivity of sub-regions of sensorimotor brain areas with other brai...

Objectives Understanding the neural mechanisms underlying Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is essential for the condition's diagnosis and treatment. Nevertheless, the pathological mechanisms of IGD remain elusive at present. Hence, we employed multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) and spectral dynamic causal modeling (spDCM) to explore this issue. Met...

Background: Migraine is a severe and disabling brain disorder, and the exact neurological mechanisms remain unclear. Migraineurs have altered pain perception, and headache attacks disrupt their sensory information processing and sensorimotor integration. The altered functional connectivity (FC) of sub-regions of sensorimotor brain areas with other...

Background: Migraine is a severe and disabling brain disorder, and the exact neurological mechanisms remain unclear. Migraineurs have altered pain perception, and headache attacks disrupt their sensory information processing and sensorimotor integration. The altered functional connectivity of sub-regions of sensorimotor brain areas with other brain...

Background: Abundant clinical studies have suggested that emotion dysregulation seems to be the essential pathogenesis for Internet gaming disorder (IGD). However, the neural mechanism of emotion regulation for IGD is still unclear. Methods: Subjective evaluation and fMRI data were collected from 50 subjects (IGD: 24; recreational game user (RGU...

Background Studies of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) suggest an imbalanced relationship between cognitive control and reward processing in people with IGD. However, it remains unclear how these two systems interact with each other, and whether they could serve as neurobiological markers for IGD. Methods Fifty IGD subjects and matched individuals w...

Background and aims: Although studies have suggested that individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) may have impairments in cognitive functioning, the nature of the relationship is unclear given that the information is typically derived from cross-sectional studies. Methods: Individuals with active IGD (n = 154) and those individuals no lo...

Background: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) manifests principally as a suite of cognitive impairments, particularly in the executive domain. Executive functioning requires the dynamic coordination of neural activity over large-scale networks. It remains unclear whether changes in...

Although online gaming may lead to Internet gaming disorder (IGD), most players are recreational game users (RGU) who do not develop IGD. So far, the topological organization of whole-brain functional networks in IGD remains poorly understood. The inclusion of RGU as a control group could minimize the potential effects of gaming experience and gami...

Although higher precuneus activation has often been observed in subjects with addictions when facing addiction-relevant cues, the recruitment of the precuneus is not consistent across studies. Here, we examined the extent to which addiction severity may relate to precuneus involvement during cue reactivity in internet gaming disorder (IGD). We recr...

Background Many studies have found an interesting issue in the Internet gaming disorder (IGD): males are always observed to be the majority. Explore why males are more vulnerable to IGD than females could help in understanding the underlying neural mechanism of IGD. Methods Data from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were collected from...

Introduction: Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy -(CADASIL) is the most common familial cerebral small vessel disease caused by notch homolog protein 3 gene mutations and is strongly associated with ischemic stroke and dementia. Patients are characterized by cognitive impairment and widesprea...

Background: Increasing evidence has suggested that the cerebellum is associated with pain and migraine. In addition, the descending pain system of the brainstem is the major site of trigeminal pain processing and modulation and has been discussed as a main player in the pathophysiology of migraine. Cerebellar and brainstem structural changes assoc...

The brainstem has been discussed as the main player in the pathogenesis of migraine. Dysfunctional brainstem nuclei and their abnormal connections to other key brain centers may contribute to headache and other symptoms of migraine. In the present study, 32 patients with migraine without aura (MWoA) and 32 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs...

Nocturnal enuresis (NE) is a common disorder in school-aged children that has been reported to affect nearly 10% of 7-year-old children and affects both the children and their families. Previous studies have shown that the risk of psychosocial difficulties in children with enuresis is elevated. Thus, children with NE may experience negative effects...

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a progressive neurological degenerative disorder characterized by impaired motor function and non-motor dysfunctions. While recent studies have highlighted the role of the cerebellum in PD, our understanding of its role in PD remains limited. In the present study, we used resting-state fMRI to evaluate dysfunctions withi...

Background Cerebral autosomal dominant arteriopathy with subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL) mainly manifests with cognitive impairment. Cognitive deficits in patients with CADASIL are correlated with structural brain changes such as lacunar lesion burden, normalized brain volume, and anterior thalamic radiation lesions, but chan...

Objectives Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is becoming a matter of concern around the world. However, the neural mechanism underlying IGD remains unclear. The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences between the neuronal network of IGD participants and that of recreational Internet game users (RGU). Methods Imaging and behavioral data we...

Although internet gaming disorder (IGD) is associated with negative health measures, individuals may recover without professional intervention. Exploring neural features associated with natural recovery may provide insights into how best to promote health among people with IGD. Seventy-nine IGD subjects were scanned when they were performing cue-cr...

Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is associated with negative health measures. However, little is known regarding the brain mechanisms or cognitive factors that may predict transitions from regular game use (RGU) to IGD. Such knowledge may help identify individuals who are particularly vulnerable to IGD and aid in prevention efforts. One hundred forty...

Background: Online gaming has become a popular leisure activity, in which males more frequently develop Internet gaming disorder (IGD) compared to females. However, gender-related neurocognitive differences have largely not been systematically investigated in IGD. Methods: Cue-elicited-craving tasks were performed before game playing and immedia...

Objective: Studies have shown that males are more prevalence than females in Internet gaming disorder (IGD). This study was set to explore the sex difference on the effect of IGD in resting states of the brain. Methods: Resting-state fMRI data were collected from 58 recreational Internet game users (RGU, male = 29) and 46 IGD subjects (male = 23...

Background: Botulinum toxin type A (BoNT-A) is generally considered safe and is widely used to treat a variety of clinical conditions involving muscle hyperactivity and for cosmetic purposes. However, the effects of BoNT-A poisoning (botulism) on brain function are poorly understood. Methodology/principal findings: Herein, we investigated brain...

Significant inter-group differences in fALFF values between patients with BoNT-A poisoning and controls. (DOCX)

Background: Male predominance is a well-known feature of Internet gaming disorder (IGD), with a reported male to female ratio of 3:1. Because of the overwhelming focus on males, little is known about the neural basis of sex differences in IGD, especially neuroanatomical features. Thus, investigations on sex differences with an adequate sample size...

Objects: Understanding the neural basis underlying Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is essential for the diagnosis and treatment of this type of behavioural addiction. Aberrant resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of the default mode network (DMN) has been reported in individuals with IGD. Since rsFC is not a directional analysis, the effect...

Backgrounds: More males than females play video games and develop problems with gaming. However, little is known regarding how males and females who game on the Internet may differ with respect to neural responses to gaming cues. Methods: Behavioral and fMRI data were recorded from 40 female and 68 male Internet gamers. This study included three c...

Although online gaming may lead to Internet gaming disorder (IGD), most players are recreational game users (RGUs) who do not develop IGD. Thus far, little is known about brain structural abnormalities in IGD subjects relative to RGUs. The inclusion of RGUs as a control group could minimize the potential effects of gaming experience and gaming‐rela...

Objective Primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (PMNE) refers to bed-wetting in children who have no other lower urinary tract symptoms and are never dry for more than 6 months. Our previous studies demonstrated that children with PMNE exhibited brain functional abnormalities compared with healthy controls; however, researches on the abnormali...

Background: Although males more frequently develop Internet gaming disorder (IGD) as compared with females, few studies have examined gender-related neurocognitive differences in IGD. TASK AND DESIGN: fMRI and subjective data were collected from 119 subjects (IGD, male 29, female 25; recreational game use (RGU), male 34, female 31) when they were...

Internet search changed the way we store and recall information and possibly altered our brain functions. Previous studies suggested that Internet search facilitates the information-acquisition process. However, this process may cause individuals to lose the ability to store and recollect specific contents. Despite the numerous behavioral studies c...

Several studies have suggested that Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is related to altered brain white matter integrity. However, seeming inconsistencies exist and may reflect comparison groups not matched well for certain gaming characteristics. In order to address this possible concern, we recruited in the present study individuals with recreationa...

Internet gaming disorder (IGD), defined as the persistent use of online games with ignorance of adverse consequences, has increasingly raised widespread public concerns. This study aimed at elucidating the precise mechanisms underlying IGD by comparing intertemporal decision-making process between 18 IGD participants and 21 matched healthy controls...

Long-term headache attacks may cause human brain network reorganization in patients with migraine. In the current study, we calculated the topologic properties of functional networks based on the Brainnetome atlas using graph theory analysis in 29 female migraineurs without aura (MWoA) and in 29 female age-matched healthy controls. Compared with co...

Significance We undertook an interdisciplinary exploration that unites evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and developmental cultural psychology. Based on extensive and detailed behavioral analyses of 684 new mothers in 11 countries and complementary functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses of brain responses in 43 first-time new US mo...

The aim of this study was to investigate the spontaneous neural activity and functional connectivity (FC) in heavy metal music lovers (HMML) compared with classical music lovers (CML) during resting state. Forty HMML and 31 CML underwent resting-state functional MRI scans. Fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and seed-based re...

Objective: Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) showed attentional bias toward gaming-related cues and exhibited impaired executive functions. The purpose of this study was to explore the alternations in related functional brain networks underlying attentional bias in IGD subjects. Methods: Eigh...

Background: Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SCAT) have different structures and metabolic functions, and play different roles in the regulation of mammal systemic endocrine. However, little is known about morphology and physiological and metabolic functions between VAT and SCAT in fish. Methods: We compared the mor...

Rationale To date, little is known regarding the neural mechanisms of the functional recovery of language after repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in aphasia. Our aim was to investigate the mechanism that underlies rTMS and speech training in a case report. Patient concerns and diagnoses We report the case of a 39-year-old woman w...

Background Migraine constitute a disorder characterized by recurrent headaches, and have a high prevalence, a high socio-economic burden and severe effects on quality of life. Our previous fMRI study demonstrated that some brain regions are functional alterations in migraineurs. As the function of the human brain is related to its structure, we fur...

Although the neural substrates of cue reactivity in Internet gaming disorder (IGD) have been examined in previous studies, most of these studies focused on the comparison between IGD subjects and healthy controls, which cannot exclude a potential effect of cue-familiarity. To overcome this limitation, the current study focuses on the comparison bet...

Transcranial magnetic stimulation induces changes in the cerebral cortex functions, either unilaterally or bilaterally. Here, we combined evoked potential recording and functional brain imaging to analyze the modulating effects of continuous theta burst stimulation in bilateral motor regions of the adult human cortex. We detected concurrent inhibit...

Synopsis The purpose of this study was to investigate spontaneous low-frequency fluctuations in CADASIL patients during resting-state fMRI scans. Eleven patients (aged, 33-66 years, 6 female) and 11 age-and gender-matched healthy controls were recruited. Amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) was calculated to measure spontaneous brain activ...

This study utilized independent component analysis to explore the abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in male participants with Internet gaming disorder (IGD). Functional magnetic resonance imaging and behavioral data were collected from 21 healthy controls (HC) and 18 IGD patients when they were performing a delay discounting task. Behavioral re...

Migraine is a common recurrent neurological disorder combining nausea, vomiting, and hypersensitivities to visual, auditory, olfactory and somatosensory stimuli. However, the dysfunction of the sensorimotor network in migraineurs has not been well clarified. In the present study, we evaluated the dysfunction of the sensorimotor network in 30 migrai...

Although the mirror neuron system (MNS) has been extensively studied in monkeys and adult humans, very little is known about its development. Previous studies suggest that the MNS is present by infancy and that the brain and MNS-related cognitive abilities (such as language, empathy, and imitation learning) continue to develop after childhood. In h...

Migraines are a common and undertreated disease and often have psychiatric comorbidities; however, the abnormal mechanism of emotional processing in migraine patients has not been well clarified. This study sought to investigate the different brain functional activation to neutral, positive and negative emotional stimuli between migraine and health...

Background: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been proposed as a behavioral addiction warranting additional investigation. Craving is considered a core component of addictions. However, few studies to date have investigated craving in IGD. In the current study, we investigated how gaming was associated with changes in response to gaming-related s...

Background The precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex, which has been associated with pain sensitivity, plays a pivotal role in the default mode network. However, information regarding migraine-related alterations in resting-state brain functional connectivity in the default mode network and in local regional spontaneous neuronal activity is not adeq...

Although Internet games have been proven to be addictive, only a few game players develop online gaming addiction. A large number of players play online games recreationally without being addicted to it. These individuals are defined as recreational Internet gaming users (RGU). So far, no research has investigated decision-making and impulse contro...