Subcortical brain volume, regional cortical thickness, and cortical surface area across disorders: findings from the ENIGMA ADHD, ASD, and OCD Working Groups

Objective Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are common neurodevelopmental disorders that frequently co-occur. We aimed to directly compare all three disorders. The ENIGMA consortium is ideally positioned to investigate structural brain alterations across these disorders. Methods Structural T1-weighted whole-brain MRI of controls (n=5,827) and patients with ADHD (n=2,271), ASD (n=1,777), and OCD (n=2,323) from 151 cohorts worldwide were analyzed using standardized processing protocols. We examined subcortical volume, cortical thickness and surface area differences within a mega-analytical framework, pooling measures extracted from each cohort. Analyses were performed separately for children, adolescents, and adults using linear mixed-effects models adjusting for age, sex and site (and ICV for subcortical and surface area measures). Results We found no shared alterations among all three disorders, while shared alterations between any two disorders did not survive multiple comparisons correction. Children with ADHD compared to those with OCD had smaller hippocampal volumes, possibly influenced by IQ. Children and adolescents with ADHD also had smaller ICV than controls and those with OCD or ASD. Adults with ASD showed thicker frontal cortices compared to adult controls and other clinical groups. No OCD-specific alterations across different age-groups and surface area alterations among all disorders in childhood and adulthood were observed. Conclusion Our findings suggest robust but subtle alterations across different age-groups among ADHD, ASD, and OCD. ADHD-specific ICV and hippocampal alterations in children and adolescents, and ASD-specific cortical thickness alterations in the frontal cortex in adults support previous work emphasizing neurodevelopmental alterations in these disorders

Electroweak measurements in electron–positron collisions at w-boson-pair energies at lep

Contains fulltext : 121524.pdf (preprint version ) (Open Access

Search for neutral MSSM Higgs bosons at LEP.

The four LEP collaborations, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have searched for the neutral Higgs bosons which are predicted by the Minimal Supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). The data of the four collaborations are statistically combined and examined for their consistency with the background hypothesis and with a possible Higgs boson signal. The combined LEP data show no significant excess of events which would indicate the production of Higgs bosons. The search results are used to set upper bounds on the cross-sections of various Higgs-like event topologies. The results are interpreted within the MSSM in a number of “benchmark” models, including CP-conserving and CP-violating scenarios. These interpretations lead in all cases to large exclusions in the MSSM parameter space. Absolute limits are set on the parameter cosβ and, in some scenarios, on the masses of neutral Higgs bosons

Search for Charged Higgs bosons: Combined Results Using LEP Data

The four LEP collaborations, ALEPH, DELPHI, L3 and OPAL, have searched for pair-produced charged Higgs bosons in the framework of Two Higgs Doublet Models (2HDMs). The data of the four experiments are statistically combined. The results are interpreted within the 2HDM for Type I and Type II benchmark scenarios. No statistically significant excess has been observed when compared to the Standard Model background prediction, and the combined LEP data exclude large regions of the model parameter space. Charged Higgs bosons with mass below 80 GeV/c^2 (Type II scenario) or 72.5 GeV/c^2 (Type I scenario, for pseudo-scalar masses above 12 GeV/c^2) are excluded at the 95% confidence level