BACKGROUND Benign essential blepharospasm (BEB) is a neurologic disorder characterized by an adult-onset focal dystonia that causes involuntary blinking and eyelid spasms. The pathophysiology of BEB patients remains unclear. This study investigated intrinsic low-frequency fluctuation in BEB patients during resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). METHODS The study included ...

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS FMRI) has been widely used to analyze functional alterations in amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Although many clinical studies of aMCI and AD patients using RS FMRI have been undertaken, conducting a meta-analysis has not been easy because of seed selection bias by the investigators. The pur...

BACKGROUND Meditation has been increasingly evaluated as an important complementary therapeutic tool for the treatment of depression. The present study employed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) to examine the effect of body-mind relaxation meditation induction (BMRMI) on the brain activity of depressed patients and to investigate possible mechanisms of action for th...

BACKGROUND Pathologic alterations in resting-state brain activity patterns exist among individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Since physical exercise alters resting-state brain activity in non-PD populations and improves PD symptoms, we assessed the acute effect of exercise on resting-state brain activity in exercise-trained individuals with PD. MATERIAL AND METHODS Resting-state functional...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effects of a functional polymorphism of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene on spontaneous brain activity in healthy male adolescents. METHODS Thirty-one healthy male adolescents with the low-activity MAOA genotype (MAOA-L) and 25 healthy male adolescents with the high-activity MAOA genotype (MAOA-H) completed the 11-item Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) quest...

background: intravenous immunoglobulin (ivig) is an established treatment of immune mediated demyelinating neuropathy including guillain-barré syndrome and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. recent trials suggest its efficacy in treating relapsing- remitting multiple sclerosis. ivig exerts a number of effects, which may be beneficial in treating multiple sclerosis (ms): reductio...

Blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) and arterial spin labeling (ASL) are two predominant resting-state fMRI techniques in mapping spontaneous brain activities. At single voxel level, cerebral blood flow (CBF) measured by ASL and amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (ALFF) of BOLD have been recognized as useful indices to characterize brain function in health and disease. However, no stu...

OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to explore the amplitude of spontaneous brain activity fluctuations in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) using the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) method. METHODS ALFF and SPM8 were utilized to assess alterations in regional spontaneous brain activities in patients with RRMS in comparison with healthy controls (HCs). ...

Background In light of solid data regarding the extent of the placebo response as well as the rigorous arguments in favor of the randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial, placebo analgesia has widely been tested and documented as one of the most robust placebo effects. Newly developed brain imaging tools such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have provided systematic evidence...