https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ftp/articles/desikan06-parcellation.pdf

An automated labeling system for subdividing the human cerebral cortex on MRI scans into gyral based regions of interest.

Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

I have developed "tennis elbow" from lugging this book around the past four weeks, but it is worth the pain, the effort, and the aspirin. It is also worth the (relatively speaking) bargain price. Including appendixes, this book contains 894 pages of text. The entire panorama of the neural sciences is surveyed and examined, and it is comprehensive in its scope, from genomes to social behaviors. The editors explicitly state that the book is designed as "an introductory text for students of biology, behavior, and medicine," but it is hard to imagine any audience, interested in any fragment of neuroscience at any level of sophistication, that would not enjoy this book. The editors have done a masterful job of weaving together the biologic, the behavioral, and the clinical sciences into a single tapestry in which everyone from the molecular biologist to the practicing psychiatrist can find and appreciate his or

Principles of Neural Science

http://midag.cs.unc.edu/pubs/papers/Neuroimage06_Yushkevich.pdf

User-guided 3D active contour segmentation of anatomical structures: Significantly improved efficiency and reliability

Accurate clinical staging of dementia in older subjects has not previously been achieved despite the use of such methods as psychometric testing, behavioural rating, and various combinations of simpler psychometric and behavioural evaluations The Clinical Dementia Rating (CRD), a global rating device, was developed for a prospective study of mild senile dementia--Alzheimer type (SDAT) Reliability, validity, and correlational data are discussed The CRD was found to distinguish unambiguously among older subjects with a wide range of cognitive function, from healthy to severely impaired

A new clinical scale for the staging of dementia.

Hippocampal volumes of subjects with a history of major depressive episodes but currently in remission and with no known medical comorbidity were compared to matched normal controls by using volumetric magnetic resonance images. Subjects with a history of major depression had significantly smaller left and right hippocampal volumes with no differences in total cerebral volumes. The degree of hippocampal volume reduction correlated with total duration of major depression. In addition, large (diameter > or = 4.5 mm)-hippocampal low signal foci (LSF) were found within the hippocampus, and their number also correlated with the total number of days depressed. These results suggest that depression is associated with hippocampal atrophy, perhaps due to a progressive process mediated by glucocorticoid neurotoxicity.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/93/9/3908.full.pdf

Hippocampal atrophy in recurrent major depression

This study takes advantage of continuing advances in the precision of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to quantify hippocampal volumes in a series of human subjects with a history of depression compared with controls. We sought to test the hypothesis that both age and duration of past depression would be inversely and independently correlated with hippocampal volume. A sample of 24 women ranging in age from 23 to 86 years with a history of recurrent major depression, but no medical comorbidity, and 24 case-matched controls underwent MRI scanning. Subjects with a history of depression (post-depressed) had smaller hippocampal volumes bilaterally than controls. Post-depressives also had smaller amygdala core nuclei volumes, and these volumes correlated with hippocampal volumes. In addition, post-depressives scored lower in verbal memory, a neuropsychological measure of hippocampal function, suggesting that the volume loss was related to an aspect of cognitive functioning. In contrast, there was no difference in overall brain size or general intellectual performance. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, there was no significant correlation between hippocampal volume and age in either post-depressive or control subjects, whereas there was a significant correlation with total lifetime duration of depression. This suggests that repeated stress during recurrent depressive episodes may result in cumulative hippocampal injury as reflected in volume loss.

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/19/12/5034.full.pdf

Depression Duration But Not Age Predicts Hippocampal Volume Loss in Medically Healthy Women with Recurrent Major Depression

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of antidepressant treatment on hippocampal volumes in patients with major depression. METHOD: For 38 female outpatients, the total time each had been in a depressive episode was divided into days during which the patient was receiving antidepressant medication and days during which no antidepressant treatment was received. Hippocampal gray matter volumes were determined by high resolution magnetic resonance imaging and unbiased stereological measurement. RESULTS: Longer durations during which depressive episodes went untreated with antidepressant medication were associated with reductions in hippocampal volume. There was no significant relationship between hippocampal volume loss and time depressed while taking antidepressant medication or with lifetime exposure to antidepressants. CONCLUSIONS: Antidepressants may have a neuroprotective effect during depression.

Untreated depression and hippocampal volume loss.

• To test the hypothesis that regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) is normally regulated by regional metabolic activity, rCBF and the regional cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen (rCMRO 2 ) were compared in selected human subjects. In normal subjects and patients with chronic, stable diseases of brain, rCBF correlated well with rCMRO 2 . In one individual with mild dementia, rCBF and rCMRO 2 were measured before and during exercise of the hand and forearm contralateral to the hemisphere studied. Appropriate parallel changes occurred in both rCBF and rCMRO 2 during hand exercise. In patients with acute diseases affecting the hemisphere studied, however, the correlation between rCBF and rCMRO 2 was unpredictable.

Correlation Between Regional Cerebral Blood Flow and Oxidative Metabolism: In Vivo Studies in Man

The amygdala is a key structure in the brain's integration of emotional meaning with perception and experience. Patients with depression have impaired functioning in emotional tasks involving the amygdala, and have abnormal resting amygdala blood flow. To better understand the anatomical basis for these functional changes we measured the volumes of the total amygdala and of the core amygdala nuclei in 20 patients with a history of depression and 20 pair-wise matched controls. Depressed subjects had bilaterally reduced amygdala core nuclei volumes and no significant differences in total amygdala volumes or in whole brain volumes. Since patients with a depression history have bilateral hippocampal volume reduction the volume loss in this closely related structure suggests a shared effect on both structures, potentially glucocorticoid-induced neurotoxicity mediated by the extensive reciprocal glutamatergic connections.

Mokhtar H. Gado

Papers

Hippocampal atrophy in recurrent major depression

Depression Duration But Not Age Predicts Hippocampal Volume Loss in Medically Healthy Women with Recurrent Major Depression

Untreated depression and hippocampal volume loss.

Correlation Between Regional Cerebral Blood Flow and Oxidative Metabolism: In Vivo Studies in Man

Amygdala core nuclei volumes are decreased in recurrent major depression.