Brain : a journal of neurology
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Fibromyalgia (FM) is a disorder of unknown aetiology, characterized by chronic widespread pain, stiffness and sleep disturbances. In addition, patients frequently complain of memory and attention deficits. Accumulating evidence suggests that FM is associated with CNS dysfunction and with an altered brain morphology. ⋯ On the other hand, pain scores were negatively correlated with grey matter values in the medial frontal gyrus. White matter analyses revealed comparable correlations for verbal working memory and pain scores in the medial frontal and prefrontal cortex and in the anterior cingulate cortex. Our data suggest that, in addition to chronic pain, FM patients suffer from neurocognitive deficits that correlate with local brain morphology in the frontal lobe and anterior cingulate gyrus, which may be interpreted to indicate structural correlates of pain-cognition interaction.
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Histological studies have suggested differing involvement of the hippocampal subfields in ageing and in Alzheimer's disease. The aim of this study was to assess in vivo local hippocampal changes in ageing and Alzheimer's disease based on high resolution MRI at 3 Tesla. T(1)-weighted images were acquired from 19 Alzheimer's disease patients [age 76 +/- 6 years, three males, Mini-Mental State Examination 13 +/- 4] and 19 controls (age 74 +/- 5 years, 11 males, Mini-Mental State Examination 29 +/- 1). ⋯ Hippocampal atrophy in Alzheimer's disease maps to areas in the body and tail that partly overlap those affected by normal ageing. Specific areas in the anterior and dorsal CA1 subfield involved in Alzheimer's disease were not in normal ageing. These patterns might relate to differential neural systems involved in Alzheimer's disease and ageing.