Spontaneous brain activity observed with functional magnetic resonance imaging as a potential biomarker in neuropsychiatric disorders

Abstract

As functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have yielded increasing amounts of information about the brain's spontaneous activity, they have revealed fMRI's potential to locate changes in brain hemodynamics that are associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. In this paper, we review studies that support the notion that changes in brain spontaneous activity observed by fMRI can be used as potential biomarkers for diagnosis and treatment evaluation in neuropsychiatric disorders. We first review the methods used to study spontaneous activity from the perspectives of (1) the properties of local spontaneous activity, (2) the spatial pattern of spontaneous activity, and (3) the topological properties of brain networks. We also summarize the major findings associated with major neuropsychiatric disorders obtained using these methods. Then we review the pilot studies that have used spontaneous activity to discriminate patients from normal controls. Finally, we discuss current challenges and potential research directions to further elucidate the clinical use of spontaneous brain activity in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Power spectral density and coherence analysis of Alzheimer’s EEG

“…Investigation of neuropsychiatric disorder using neuroscientific approaches, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (Chang and Glover 2010;Vemuri et al 2012;Zhou et al 2010), magnetoencephalography (MEG) (Stam et al 2006;Zhang et al 2014), electroencephalography (EEG) (Dauwels et al 2010a(Dauwels et al , b, 2013Jelles et al 2008;Vialatte et al 2012) and so on, attracts more interests. As a noninvasive, simple, and relatively low cost approach, resting-state EEG indirectly measures brain neural electric activity from the scalp of the head.…”

Intervention-induced Enhancement in Intrinsic Brain Activity in Healthy Older Adults

“…This methodological void is a consequence of challenges to reliably quantify intrinsic brain activity in the absence of exogenous stimuli 13 . LFF in resting-state fMRI encode physiologically meaningful indicators of intrinsic brain function in the absence of explicit input 13 , while the ALFF is seen as particularly reflecting the intensity of spontaneous neural activity at rest.…”

“…This methodological void is a consequence of challenges to reliably quantify intrinsic brain activity in the absence of exogenous stimuli 13 . LFF in resting-state fMRI encode physiologically meaningful indicators of intrinsic brain function in the absence of explicit input 13 , while the ALFF is seen as particularly reflecting the intensity of spontaneous neural activity at rest. ALFF has been used as a reliable and sensitive measure in the study of individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and major depressive disorder 12,14,45 .…”

“…Recent evidence revealed the important meaning of ALFF in both clinical and healthy populations. Abnormal ALFFs are considered as potential biomarkers used for diagnosis and treatment evaluation of neuropsychiatric disorders 13 , including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, major depression, and schizophrenia cortex, and inferior parietal lobule during cognitive tasks 19 . Changes in ALFF have also been associated with pathological aging, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).…”

Role of structural inhomogeneities in resting-state brain dynamics

“…Complex but highly structured patterns of correlated fluctuations have been observed in spontaneous/task-free brain activity measured by brain imaging techniques in healthy (Biswal et al 1995;Damoiseaux et al 2006) and diseased brain (Zhou et al 2010). It has been shown that dynamical patterns of these correlations are shaped by a complex interplay between underlying anatomical connections and ongoing activity of the interacting regions .…”