The Regulatory Role of the Human Mediodorsal Thalamus

Pergola, Giulio; Danet, Lola; Pitel, Anne‐Lise; Carlesimo, Giovanni Augusto; Segobin, Shailendra; Pariente, Jérémie; Suchan, Boris; Mitchell, Anna S.; Barbeau, Emmanuel J.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.08.006

Cited by 150 publications

(132 citation statements)

References 131 publications

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“…Indeed, the introduction of thiamine enrichment of rice and flour (Axford & Williams, ; Bauerfeind, ) has significantly reduced the incidence of WE and KS, as reported in Australia (Harper, Fornes, Duyckaerts, Lecomte, & Hauw, ). This comports with earlier studies suggesting that only alcoholics with thiamine deficiency have diencephalic damage (Kril et al, ; Torvik, ; Victor et al, ) specific to MD with additional damage to AV in KS (Harding et al, ; but see Pergola et al, ). Further, neither the AUD nor HIV groups in the current study had significant mnemonic deficits.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Sensitivity of ventrolateral posterior thalamic nucleus to back pain in alcoholism and CD4 nadir in HIV

Zahr

Sullivan

Pohl

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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Volumes of thalamic nuclei are differentially affected by disease‐related processes including alcoholism and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. This MRI study included 41 individuals diagnosed with alcohol use disorders (AUD, 12 women), 17 individuals infected with HIV (eight women), and 49 healthy controls (24 women) aged 39 to 75 years. A specialized, high‐resolution acquisition protocol enabled parcellation of five thalamic nuclei: anterior [anterior ventral (AV)], posterior [pulvinar (Pul)], medial [mediodorsal (MD)], and ventral [including ventral lateral posterior (VLp) and ventral posterior lateral (VPl)]. An omnibus mixed‐model approach solving for volume considered the “fixed effects” of nuclei, diagnosis, and their interaction while covarying for hemisphere, sex, age, and supratentorial volume (svol). The volume by diagnosis interaction term was significant; the effects of hemisphere and sex were negligible. Follow‐up mixed‐model tests thus evaluated the combined (left + right) volume of each nucleus separately for effects of diagnosis while controlling for age and svol. Only the VLp showed diagnoses effects and was smaller in the AUD (p = .04) and HIV (p = .0003) groups relative to the control group. In the AUD group, chronic back pain (p = .008) and impaired deep tendon ankle reflex (p = .0005) were associated with smaller VLp volume. In the HIV group, lower CD4 nadir (p = .008) was associated with smaller VLp volume. These results suggest that the VLp is differentially sensitive to disease processes associated with AUD and HIV.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Sensitivity of ventrolateral posterior thalamic nucleus to back pain in alcoholism and CD4 nadir in HIV

Zahr

Sullivan

Pohl

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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“…Among salience network nodes, the right FI has been proposed to help coordinate sympathetic outflow with highly processed sensory stimuli reflecting homeostatic, affective, motivational, and hedonic information 18,20,36,40 . The anterior and dorsomedial thalamic nuclei have known structural projections to frontal areas such as the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices 43 , two regions that stood out throughout our findings. Although our results do not inform causal relationships and are derived from a relatively small sample due the laborious nature of the quantitative neuropathological methods, the novelty of this study relates to the support our data provide for a chain of influence that links specific neuronal morphotypes to brain network structure to emotional empathy, pointing towards the cellular and large-scale brain circuits that are critical for empathy.…”

Section: Bridging the Levels: The Neural Correlates Of Social-emotionsupporting

confidence: 62%

Salience network atrophy links neuron type-specific pathobiology to loss of empathy in frontotemporal dementia

Pasquini

Nana

Toller

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Abbreviations ALS = amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; bv = behavioral variant; C9orf72 = chromosome 9 open reading frame 72; FI = frontoinsular cortex; FTD = frontotemporal dementia; MND = motor neuron disease; MRI = magnetic resonance imaging; TDP-43 = transactive response DNA binding protein 43 kD; VENs = von Economo neurons Pasquini et al.2 AbstractEach neurodegenerative syndrome presents with characteristic symptoms that reflect the specific pattern of cellular, regional, and large-scale network vulnerability. In behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), a disorder of social-emotional function, von Economo neurons (VENs) and fork cells are among the initial cellular targets. These large layer 5 projection neurons are concentrated in the anterior cingulate and frontoinsular (FI) cortices, regions that anchor the salience network, a large-scale system linked to social-emotional function via roles in autonomic processing and homeostatic behavioral guidance. Here, we combined questionnaire-based empathy assessments, in vivo structural neuroimaging, and quantitative histopathological data from 16 patients across the FTD-amyotrophic lateral sclerosis clinicopathological spectrum linked to TAR DNA-binding protein 43 pathobiology. We sought to examine how neuron type-specific degeneration is linked to regional gray and white matter atrophy and, in turn, to loss of emotional empathy. We show that disease protein aggregation within right FI VENs and fork cells is associated with atrophy in insular, medial frontal, and subcortical regions including the dorsomedial thalamus that represent key nodes within the salience network. Gray and white matter degeneration within these structures, in turn, mediated loss of emotional empathy, suggesting a chain of influence linking the cellular, regional/network, and behavioral levels in producing the signature bvFTD clinical features. Overall, the findings suggest that VENs and fork cells facilitate specialized human socialemotional capacities by contributing to salience network function.

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“…Communication between the thalamus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) is critical for cognition and disrupted in mental health disorders Ouhaz et al, 2018;Pergola et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mediodorsal and ventromedial thalamus engage distinct L1 circuits in the prefrontal cortex

Anastasiades

Collins

Carter

2020

Preprint

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The Regulatory Role of the Human Mediodorsal Thalamus

Cited by 150 publications

References 131 publications

Sensitivity of ventrolateral posterior thalamic nucleus to back pain in alcoholism and CD4 nadir in HIV

Sensitivity of ventrolateral posterior thalamic nucleus to back pain in alcoholism and CD4 nadir in HIV

Salience network atrophy links neuron type-specific pathobiology to loss of empathy in frontotemporal dementia

Mediodorsal and ventromedial thalamus engage distinct L1 circuits in the prefrontal cortex

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