Nela Němcová Elfmarková

Impact of Parkinson's disease and levodopa on resting state functional connectivity related to speech prosody control

BACKGROUND Impaired speech prosody is common in Parkinsons disease (PD). We assessed the impact of PD and levodopa on MRI resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) underlying speech prosody control. METHODS We studied 19 PD patients in the OFF and ON dopaminergic conditions and 15 age-matched healthy controls using functional MRI and seed partial least squares correlation (PLSC) analysis. In the PD group, we also correlated levodopa-induced rs-FC changes with the results of acoustic analysis. RESULTS The PLCS analysis revealed a significant impact of PD but not of medication on the rs-FC strength of spatial correlation maps seeded by the anterior cingulate (p = 0.006), the right orofacial primary sensorimotor cortex (OF_SM1; p = 0.025) and the right caudate head (CN; p = 0.047). In the PD group, levodopa-induced changes in the CN and OF_SM1 connectivity strengths were related to changes in speech prosody. CONCLUSIONS We demonstrated an impact of PD but not of levodopa on rs-FC within the brain networks related to speech prosody control. When only the PD patients were taken into account, the association between treatment-induced changes in speech prosody and changes in rs-FC within the associative striato-prefrontal and motor speech networks was found.

Predicting Vitality Change in Older Breast Cancer Survivors after Primary Treatment--an Approach Based on Using Time-related Difference of Pro-inflammatory Marker C-reactive Protein.

BACKROUND We aimed to determine prognosis of vitality change and functional status of breast cancer survivors after primary oncological treatment using time-related differences of elevated levels of highly sensitive proinflammatory C-reactive protein (CRP). PATIENTS AND METHODS The test group consisted of 46 elderly breast cancer survivors (median age was 65 years) who completed Vitality Scale of Short Form 36 (SF-36) after completing treatment and another retrospectively at diagnosis. Data on tumor-related factors, treatment, and outcomes were obtained retrospectively from medical records, and linear regression analysis was performed. CRP was followed at diagnosis and one year after primary treatment. Within the scope of this study, clinically important difference in the Vitality Scale was set at five points of change. RESULTS Results showed a statistically significant relationship between CRP change and vitality component of SF-36 change (rs = - 0.350, p = 0.023) in which a decrease in CRP inversely correlated with the quality of life component. The overall change was 1.078 of the vitality scale score (approximately 1 point) for each 1 unit decrease of CRP (1 mg/ L). Association of CRP levels (before and after treatment, its difference between these time points) with age, number of comorbidities and stage of the disease was analyzed and no statistically significant relationship was found in our study. CONCLUSION Preliminary results suggested time-related differences in elevated CRP levels as a potentially suitable predictor for change in vitality status for long term, chronic condition for older breast cancer survivors. We suggest the interpretation schema including an understanding that CRP change of 5 mg/ L and more should be considered a potential risk factor for subsequent negative clinical outcomes.

45. A novel cognitive fMRI task to assess brain mechanisms underlying visual processing and attention

Introduction Visual processing and attentional deficits can be found in early Alzheimers disease (AD). Study objectives We aimed at developing a visual cognitive task to study brain mechanisms underlying visual processing in early AD using functional MRI (fMRI). To achieve our goal we developed a novel visual object matching task using conventional and unconventional (spatially rotated) views of object pairs. Here we present the fMRI results of a pilot study performed in healthy subjects (HS). Methods Twenty-two right-handed HS (11 men; age 25.3±2.8years) performed a cognitive task in a 1.5T MR scanner. The task consisted of 60 pairs of emotionally neutral images and 30 pairs of dots with a symbol placed on the right or left side (a control task). Participants viewed successive paired images, separated by a visual mask. The second image of each pair was either: same (identical) as the first image (canonical condition 1); different in identity (canonical condition 2); same as the first image but spatially rotated (unconventional condition 3); different in identity and spatially rotated (unconventional condition 4) (Schendan and Stern, 2008). Participants were instructed to respond as quickly as possible by pressing a YES (left) button if the second object of the paired images was the same as the first object (regardless of spatial orientation) or by pressing NO (right) button if they were different. In the control task participants responded with buttons depending on the side of a dot symbol placement. fMRI data were processed using SPM8 and the standard pipeline. The significance level was set to p Results At the group level, we found major activation of bilateral temporo-occipital areas, precuneus and inferior frontal gyri during the canonical conditions as compared to the control task. The unconventional conditions revealed additional activation of the posterior parietal areas including the superior parietal lobule and intraparietal sulcus as compared to the canonical conditions. Conclusion In the visual object matching task with conventional views of objects we observed major engagement of the ventral visual pathway. The task with spatially unconventional views of objects revealed additional recruitment of the dorsal visual pathway and the dorsal attentional network which is involved in the top-down attentional control of visual processing (Vincent et al., 2008). Our fMRI paradigm shows promise for assessing task-dependent attentional modulation of visual processing in early AD.