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» Voxel based morphometry

We use voxel based morphometry (VBM) on clinical and population based samples. We are highly interested in adding factors known to have an impact on brain volume in our statistical analyses. Population based data obtained at the same MRI are a huge challenge for that approach. The main parameters included as confounds are demographic (age, sex see: Lotze et al., 2019), social (education time, income, social interaction), and health behaviour (smocking, alcohol, sports in leisure time, body mass index). Other parameters are often applied for exclusion of participants (radiologic pathology, chronic diseases, psychiatric or neurologic diseases) or for additional information of possible other impact on the brain (e.g., medication). Additional quality parameters and the total brain volume are used as confounders for the statistical analysis too. Many parameters interact in the same direction on the same areas of the brain such as chronic pain (e.g., Fritz et al., 2015; Domin et al., 2021), smoking habits (Fritz et al., 2014), sleep deficit, or chronic stress. Some of these findings have been obtained in large samples of different research groups and seem to be quite robust. The absence of these factors increase quality of life (Hahm et al., 2019) and interacts with income (Lotze et al., 2020). In addition, these participants spent more time with leisure sports (Eyme et al., 2018) and therefore show opposite effects on the brains GMV (increase in medial prefrontal GMV with higher quality of life; increase in hippocampus/amygdala GMV with higher income and less stress).
An interesting topic is the interaction of these factors with brain maturation which is investigated in cohorts including younger participants. In contrast, protective effects for age related decline in GMV has been investigated for the effect of education (Lotze et al., 2020), and sports (Eyme et al., 2018). A big challenge are longitudinal assessments which are however challenging to evaluate and need more elaborate statistical processes.

Decrease of prefrontal grey matter in association to smoking; modified after Fritz et al., 2014.

7.7.21: DFG-Funding for 3 years for voxel based morphometry in participants of population based samples with chronic pain: DFG LO792/37-1.

Literature:
Neumann N., Domin M., Lotze M. (2024) Gray matter volume of limbic brain structures during the development of chronic back pain: a longitudinal cohort study. Pain.
Neumann N., Domin M., Schmidt C.O., Lotze M. (2023) Chronic pain is associated with less gray matter volume in the anterior cingulum, anterior and posterior insula and hippocampus across three different chronic pain conditions, European Journal of Pain, in press.
Hosten et al., contributers from our group: Domin M., Lotze M. (2022); Ship-MR and Radiology: 12 Years of Whole-body Magnetic Resonance Imaging in a Single Center. Healthcare 10 (1), 33.
Raufelder D*, Neumann N*, Domin M, Lorenz RC, Gleich T, Golde S, Romund L, Beck A, Hoferichter F. (2021) Do belonging and social exclusion at school influence structural brain development during adolescence? Child Development, in press. (*shared first authorship)
Domin M.*, Grimm N.*, Klepzig K., Schmidt C.O., Kordass B., Lotze M. (2021) Grey matter brain alterations in temporomandibular disorder tested in a population cohort and three clinical samples, Journal of Pain, in press.
Lotze M., Domin M., Schmid C.O., Hosten, N., Grabe, H., Neumann N. (2020) Income is associated with hippocampal/amygdala and education with cingulate cortex grey matter volume. Scientific Reports 10:18786.
Kunas SL, Hilbert K, Yang Y, Richter J, Hamm A, Wittmann A, Ströhle A, Pfleiderer B, Herrmann MJ, Lang T, Lotze M, Deckert J, Arolt V, Wittchen HU, Straube B, Kircher T, Gerlach AL, Lueken U (2020) The modulating impact of cigarette smoking on brain structure in panic disorder: a VBM study. SCAN,15(8):849-859.
Neumann N., Lotze M., Domin M. (2020) Poor sleep quality influences gray-matter volume predominantly in females. Sleep, 43: 1-10.
Hahm S., Lotze M., Domin M., Schmidt S. (2019) The association of health-related quality of life and cerebral gray matter volume in the context of aging: A voxel-based morphometry study with a general population sample NeuroImage, 191:470-480.
Lotze M., Domin M., Gerlach F.H., Gaser C., Luders E., Schmid C.O., Neumann N. (2018) The Sexual Dimorphism of Local Gray Matter: Novel findings from 2,838 Adult Brains. Scientific Reports, 9(1):1671.
Eyme KM., Domin M., Gerlach F., Hosten N., Schmidt CO., Gaser C., Flöel A., Lotze M. (2018) Physically active life style is associated with increased grey matter brain volume in a medial parieto-frontal network; Behav. Brain Res., 359:215-222.
Neumann N, Domin M, Erhardt K, Lotze, M (2018) Voxel-based morphometry in creative writers: Gray-matter increase in a prefronto-thalamic-cerebellar network. European Journal of Neuroscience, 48(1), 1647-1653.
Grothe M., Lotze, M., Langner, S., Dressel A. (2017) Impairments in walking ability, dexterity and cognitive function in multiple sclerosis are associated with different regional cerebellar gray matter loss. Cerebellum, in press.
Grothe, M., Langner, S., Lotze, M., Dressel, A. (2016) The role of global and regional gray matter volume decrease in multiple sclerosis. Journal of Neurology, in press.
Kleber, B. *, Veit, R. *, Moll, C.V., Gaser, C., Birbaumer, N., Lotze, M. (2016) The brain of opera singers revisited: increased gray-matter density in right somatosensory and auditory regions revealed by voxel-based morphometry. Neuroimage, in press.
Janowitz D., Schwahn C., Borchardt U., Wittfeld K., Schulz A., Barnow S., Biffar R., Hoffmann W, Habes M., Homuth G., Nauck N., Hegenscheid K., Lotze M., Völzke H., Freyberger H., Debette S., Grabe H.J. (2014) Genetic, psychosocial, and clinical factors associated with hippocampal volume in the general population. Translat. Psychiatry, 14;4:e465.
Grabe H.J., Wittfeld K., Hegenscheid K., Lotze M., Janowitz D., Völzke H., Freyberger H.J. (2014) Alexithymia and Brain Gray Matter Volumes in a general population sample; Human Brain Mapping, 35(12):5932-45.
Fritz, H.C., McAuley, J.H., Wittfeld, K., Hegenscheid, K., Schmidt, C.O., Langner, S., Lotze, M. (2016) Chronic back pain is associated with decreased prefrontal and anterior insular gray matter. Results from a population-based cohort study. Journal of Pain, 17(1):111-8.
Fritz H.C., Wittfeld K., Schmidt C.O., Domin M., Grabe H.J., Hegenscheid K., Hosten N., Lotze M. (2014) Current smoking and reduced gray matter volume – a voxel-based morphometry study. Neuropsychopharmacology, 39(11); 2594-600.