Effects of the mood induction procedure on mood and pareidolic illusions.

<p>(A) In both the DLB and AD groups, the sSTAI scores were highest under the negative mood condition and lowest under the positive mood condition, which indicates that the target moods were successfully induced by the experimental manipulations. DLB, dementia with Lewy body disease; AD, Alzheimer's disease; sSTAI, short form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. (B) In the DLB group, the numbers of pareidolic responses were significantly larger under the negative mood condition (24.1 ± 20.5) than those under the neutral mood condition (11.2 ± 16.1) and were similar between the positive (9.4 ± 15.4) and neutral mood conditions. There were no significant differences in the number of pareidolic responses across the 3 mood conditions in the AD group.</p

Signal detection theory analysis of the pareidolia test for DLB patients.

<p>(Left) No significant differences were observed across the 3 mood conditions in <i>d</i>_<i>e</i><i>'</i> (discrimination ability). (Right) <i>Ce</i> (criterion/bias) was significantly modulated by the induced mood and was highest under the negative mood condition and lowest under the positive mood condition. DLB, dementia with Lewy body disease.</p

Results of the multiple linear regression analysis.

<p>Results of the multiple linear regression analysis.</p

Outline of the experiment.

<p>sSTAI, short form of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory; MMSE, Mini-Mental State Examination.</p

Demographic characteristics of the participants.

<p>Demographic characteristics of the participants.</p

Schematic illustrations of the psychophysical tasks.

<p>In both the Global and Local tasks, compound letter stimuli appeared after a 2-second presentation of a visual cue that indicated whether the target was a global or local letter. The subjects were instructed to respond orally to the target component of each compound letter stimulus as quickly as possible. In these tasks, the subjects maintained their attention on a single component of the compound letters (either the local or global component of the stimuli), and they were not required to reorient their attention. However, in the Mixed task, the cue that indicated the target component of the compound letter changed from trial to trial in a pseudorandom manner. The task required that the subjects switch their attention on the basis of the cue that was presented to them on each trial.</p

Results of the whole-brain voxel-based analyses.

<p>First row: The brain regions that exhibited regional cerebral glucose metabolic reductions in the 60 PD patients relative to 14 normal volunteers (p<0.05 uncorrected, extent threshold of 100 voxels). Second row and below: The brain regions in which the resting CMRglc was correlated with the RTs in the various psychophysical tasks (Global: second row, Local: third row, Mixed: fourth row) and the shift cost (fifth row) (<i>p</i><0.001 uncorrected, extent threshold of 100 voxels). PD, Parkinson’s disease; R, right; L, left.</p

Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with PD and control participants.

<p>PD, Parkinson’s disease; MMSE, Mini Mental State Examination; CDR, Clinical Dementia Rating; NPI, Neuropsychiatric Inventory; UPDRS-III, Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale-motor score; L, left; R, right; B, bilateral.</p

The results of the ROI-based stepwise multiple regression analyses.

<p>7 ROIs are shown in different colors: right DLPFC  =  red, left DLPFC  =  cyan, left VLPFC  =  yellow, right TPO  =  purple, left TPO  =  green, medial parietal cortex  =  white, and left posterior IT  =  blue. The scatterplots illustrate the relationship between the psychophysical task performance scores and the FDG-uptake values in the ROIs. DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; VLPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex; TPO, temporo-parieto-occipital junction; posterior IT, posterior inferior temporal cortex; FDG, ¹⁸F-fluorodeoxyglucose.</p

On the Utility of MIBG SPECT/CT in Evaluating Cardiac Sympathetic Dysfunction in Lewy Body Diseases

<div><p>Background</p><p>Abnormal cardiac uptake of ¹²³I-metaiodobenzylguanidine (¹²³I-MIBG) is a diagnostic marker of Lewy body diseases (LBDs), e.g., Parkinson’s disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Planar imaging is generally used to assess cardiac sympathetic dysfunction in ¹²³I-MIBG scintigraphy; however, its clinical utility requires further improvement. We hypothesized that the co-registration of single-photon emission tomography (SPECT) and computed tomography (CT) images would improve the diagnostic accuracy of ¹²³I-MIBG cardiac scintigraphy for LBDs. This study sought to evaluate the effects of SPECT/CT imaging on ¹²³I-MIBG cardiac scintigraphy for diagnosing LBDs.</p><p>Methods</p><p>We retrospectively investigated data of 54 patients (consecutive 18 patients in each PD, DLB, and idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus [iNPH] groups) who underwent ¹²³I-MIBG cardiac scintigraphy (planar and SPECT/CT) because of suspected LBDs at the Tohoku University hospital from June 2012 to June 2015. We compared the diagnostic accuracies of the conventional planar ¹²³I-MIBG method and SPECT/CT methods (manual and semi-automatic).</p><p>Results</p><p>In the conventional planar analysis, ¹²³I-MIBG uptake decreased only in the DLB group compared with the iNPH group. In contrast, the SPECT/CT analysis revealed significantly lower ¹²³I-MIBG uptake in both the PD and DLB groups compared with the iNPH group. Furthermore, a receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that both the manual and semi-automatic SPECT/CT methods were superior to the conventional planar method in differentiating the 3 disorders.</p><p>Conclusions</p><p>SPECT/CT ¹²³I-MIBG cardiac scintigraphy can detect mild cardiac sympathetic dysfunction in LDBs. Our results suggest that the SPECT/CT technique improves diagnostic accuracy for LBDs.</p></div