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. 2011 Dec;32(12):2172-82.
doi: 10.1002/hbm.21179. Epub 2011 Feb 8.

Involvement of glutamate in rest-stimulus interaction between perigenual and supragenual anterior cingulate cortex: a combined fMRI-MRS study

Niall W Duncan  1 , Björn Enzi, Christine Wiebking, Georg Northoff
Affiliations

Involvement of glutamate in rest-stimulus interaction between perigenual and supragenual anterior cingulate cortex: a combined fMRI-MRS study

Niall W Duncan et al. Hum Brain Mapp. 2011 Dec.

Abstract

The brain shows a high degree of activity at rest. The significance of this activity has come increasingly into focus. At present, however, the interaction between this activity and stimulus-induced activity is not well defined. The interaction between a task-negative (perigenual anterior cingulate cortex, pgACC) and task-positive (supragenual anterior cingulate cortex, sgACC) region during a simple task was thus investigated using a combination of fMRI and MRS. Negative BOLD responses in the pgACC were found to show a unidirectional effective connectivity with task-induced positive BOLD responses in the sgACC. This connectivity was shown to be related specifically with glutamate levels in the pgACC. These results demonstrate an interaction between deactivation from resting-state and resting-state glutamate levels in a task-negative region (pgACC), and task-induced activity in a task-positive region (sgACC). This provides insight into the neuronal and biochemical mechanisms by means of which the resting state activity of the brain potentially impacts upon subsequent stimulus-induced activity.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Areas of deactivation from rest in response to the empathy task are shown (contrast [fixation > empathy]), along with activations in response to the empathy task (contrast [empathy > smoothed]). Mean percent signal changes are shown for the viewing of emotional pictures, the viewing of smoothed pictures, and the fixation period in the pgACC (red box) and sgACC (green box) MRS voxels. Mean percentage signal changes were calculated using the Marsbar toolbox (available at: http://marsbar.sourceforge.net/). Error bars represent SEM. Images are shown with a threshold of P = 0.005 (unc.) for the purpose of illustration. See also Supporting Information Table Ia and Ib. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
Figure 2
Figure 2
Unidirectional connectivity between negative signal changes in the pgACC MRS region (red box) and positive signal changes in the sgACC MRS region (green box) during the empathy task was demonstrated using PPI analyses. A relationship between the BOLD response during the same task in the sgACC and the level of glutamate in the pgACC was demonstrated using regression analyses. A plot of the regression between the mean sgACC BOLD response and pgACC glutamate at the peak regression voxel within the sgACC is shown. A combined plot of the PPI regression results for each individual subject obtained from their first level PPI analysis at the peak voxel within the sgACC (from the group level analysis) is also shown. Regression plots were produced by obtaining the fitted response at the peak voxel via the “fitted response” option of the “plot” function in SPM, and plotting these against the relevant explanatory variable in MATLAB (The Mathwork Inc., Natick, MA). Activation images are shown with a threshold P = 0.005 (unc.) for the purpose of illustration. See also Supporting Information Tables IIa, IIb and III. [Color figure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at wileyonlinelibrary.com.]
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