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Chris Vriend

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7 papers

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YNICL Journal 2025 Journal Article

Running therapy improves clinical symptoms but not functional network connectivity in individuals with affective disorders

Chris Vriend
Josine E. Verhoeven
Laura S. van Velzen
Lianne Schmaal
Brenda W.J.H. Penninx
Laura K.M. Han

OBJECTIVES: Running therapy has been shown to be efficacious for depression and anxiety disorders. However, little is known about the effects of running therapy on functional brain connectivity. METHODS: We used resting-state functional MRI scans from 25 individuals with an affective disorder that performed 16 weeks running therapy as part of the MOod Treatment with Antidepressants or Running (MOTAR) study. Using an atlas-based approach we investigated therapy-induced changes in connectivity and topology of several functional systems, e.g. the default-mode and salience networks. We additionally performed a case-control analysis using the pre-treatment scans of affective disorder patients (N = 50) and matched healthy controls (N = 66). RESULTS: Running therapy significantly improved depressive (Inventory of Depressive Symptoms; IDS) and anxiety (Beck's Anxiety Inventory; BAI) symptoms after 16 weeks (IDS: Z = -4.13, P < 0.001, BAI: Z = -2.87, P = 0.003), but it had no significant effect on functional connectivity or network topology. The case-control analyses at baseline also did not reveal any between-group differences. CONCLUSION: We conclude that there were either no functional abnormalities to improve or the effects of 16 weeks running therapy may be too subtle to impact (global) network communication of functional systems and may be limited to changes in localized brain regions. Discrepancies between our case-control results and that of previous literature are interpreted in light of methodological and clinical heterogeneity.

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YNICL Journal 2025 Journal Article

Treatment outcome is associated with pre-treatment connectome measures across psychiatric disorders − evidence for connectomic reserve?

Chris Vriend
Sophie M.D.D. Fitzsimmons
Inga Aarts
Aniek Broekhuizen
Ysbrand D. van der Werf
Linda Douw
Henny A.D. Visser
Kathleen Thomaes

Predicting treatment efficacy in psychiatric disorders remains challenging, despite the availability of effective interventions. Previous studies suggest a link between pre-treatment brain network characteristics and treatment efficacy in individual disorders, but cross-disorder investigations are lacking. We analyzed pre-treatment MRI data from 177 individuals (113 females) with either obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or post-traumatic stress disorder with comorbid personality disorders (PTSD) that received different non-pharmacological treatments. Using diffusion and resting-state MRI, we constructed structural, functional, and multilayer connectomes and calculated network measures for network integration (e.g. global efficiency, eccentricity), segregation (modularity) and their balance (small-worldness). We assessed the relationship between these pre-treatment network measures, and treatment improvement using mixed-model and Bayesian analyses. We also compared psychiatric cases with healthy controls and investigated associations between clinical response and treatment-induced changes in network measures. Across disorders and treatments, psychiatric cases showed a 41.6 ± 29.6 % symptom improvement (62 % response rate) after treatment. They also showed pre-treatment differences in functional and multilayer network topology compared to healthy controls. Symptom improvement was associated with pre-treatment functional (P = 0.04) and structural small-worldness (P = 0.01), and multilayer eccentricity (P = 0.01), while responders had higher functional modularity (P = 0.02). Results were robust across trials and treatments, when adjusting for medication status and showed high credibility in Bayesian analyses. Network change associations with treatment response were only modest. These results show that pre-treatment connectome characteristics are related to treatment response, regardless of treatment and psychiatric disorder, and suggest that individual differences in intrinsic features of the human connectome underlie amenability to treatment.

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YNICL Journal 2024 Journal Article

Brain activation during an emotional task in participants with PTSD and borderline and/or cluster C personality disorders

Inga Aarts
Chris Vriend
Odile A. van den Heuvel
Kathleen Thomaes

INTRODUCTION: Although comorbidity of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and/or cluster C personality disorders (CPD) is common, neural correlates of this comorbidity are unknown. METHODS: We acquired functional MRI scans during an emotional face task in participants with PTSD + CPD (n = 34), PTSD + BPD (n = 24), PTSD + BPD + CPD (n = 18) and controls (n = 30). We used ANCOVAs and Bayesian analyses on specific ROIs in a fearful vs. scrambled faces contrast. We also investigated associations with clinical measures. RESULTS: There were no robust differences in brain activation between the groups with ANCOVAs. Transdiagnostically, we found a negative association between severity of dissociation and right insula and right dmPFC activation, and emotion regulation problems with right dmPFC activation. Bayesian analyses showed credible evidence for higher activation in all ROIs in the PTSD + BPD + CPD group compared to PTSD + BPD and PTSD + CPD. DISCUSSION: Our Bayesian and correlation analyses support new dimensional conceptualizations of personality disorders.

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YNICL Journal 2022 Journal Article

Eight-week multi-domain cognitive training does not impact large-scale resting-state brain networks in Parkinson’s disease

Tim D. van Balkom
Odile A. van den Heuvel
Henk W. Berendse
Ysbrand D. van der Werf
Chris Vriend

There is meta-analytic evidence for the efficacy of cognitive training (CT) in Parkinson’s disease (PD). We performed a randomized controlled trial where we found small positive effects of CT on executive function and processing speed in individuals with PD (ntotal = 140). In this study, we assessed the effects of CT on brain network connectivity and topology in a subsample of the full study population (nmri = 86). Participants were randomized into an online multi-domain CT and an active control condition and performed 24 sessions of either intervention in eight weeks. Resting-state functional MRI scans were acquired in addition to extensive clinical and neuropsychological assessments pre- and post-intervention. In line with our preregistered analysis plan (osf. io/3st82), we computed connectivity between ‘cognitive’ resting-state networks and computed topological outcomes at the whole-brain and sub-network level. We assessed group differences after the intervention with mixed-model analyses adjusting for baseline performance and analyzed the association between network and cognitive performance changes with repeated measures correlation analyses. The final analysis sample consisted of 71 participants (n CT = 37). After intervention there were no group differences on between-network connectivity and network topological outcomes. No associations between neural network and neuropsychological performance change were found. CT increased segregated network topology in a small sub-sample of cognitively intact participants. Post-hoc nodal analyses showed post-intervention enhanced connectivity of both the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the CT group. The results suggest no large-scale brain network effects of eight-week computerized CT, but rather localized connectivity changes of key regions in cognitive function, that potentially reflect the specific effects of the intervention.

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YNICL Journal 2020 Journal Article

Processing speed is related to striatal dopamine transporter availability in Parkinson's disease

Chris Vriend
Tim D. van Balkom
Corné van Druningen
Martin Klein
Ysbrand D. van der Werf
Henk W. Berendse
Odile A. van den Heuvel

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease (PD) affects the integrity of the dopamine and serotonin system, and is characterized by a plethora of different symptoms, including cognitive impairments of which the pathophysiology is not yet fully elucidated. OBJECTIVES: I-FP-CIT). METHODS: I-FP-CIT SPECT scan and a neuropsychological assessment. RESULTS: We showed a positive association between DAT availability in the head of the caudate nucleus and the Stroop Color Word Task - card I (reading words; β = 0.32, P = 0.001) and a positive association between DAT availability in the anterior putamen and the Trail Making Test part A (connecting consecutively numbered circles; β = 0.25, P = 0.02). These associations remained after adjusting for motor symptom severity or volume of the region-of-interest and were most pronounced in medication-naïve PD patients. There were no associations between cognitive performance and SERT availability in the thalamus or hippocampus. CONCLUSIONS: We interpret these results as a role for striatal dopamine - and its PD-related decline - in aspects of processing speed.

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YNICL Journal 2019 Journal Article

Striatal DAT and extrastriatal SERT binding in early-stage Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies, compared with healthy controls: An 123I-FP-CIT SPECT study

Merijn Joling
Chris Vriend
Pieter G.H.M. Raijmakers
Jessica J. van der Zande
Afina W. Lemstra
Henk W. Berendse
Jan Booij
Odile A. van den Heuvel

Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are thought to be part of a spectrum: both have a clinical profile including symptoms associated with dopaminergic and serotonergic loss, yet few imaging studies have focused on serotonergic neurodegeneration in both disorders. We aimed to study degeneration of terminals with dopamine and serotonin transporter (DAT and SERT, respectively) in patients with early-stage PD and DLB relative to healthy controls, using 123I-N-ω-fluoropropyl-2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-iodophenyl)nortropane (123I-FP-CIT) single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). We conducted region of interest (ROI) and voxel-based analyses on 123I-FP-CIT SPECT scans. Using the cerebellum as a reference region, we determined binding ratios (BRs) for bilateral ROIs in the DAT-rich striatum (head of the caudate nucleus and posterior putamen) and SERT-rich extrastriatal brain regions (thalamus, hypothalamus and hippocampus). We compared BRs in PD and DLB patients with BRs in healthy controls (all groups: n = 16). Both PD and DLB patients had lower striatal 123I-FP-CIT BRs than healthy controls for the bilateral caudate head (PD—left: F(1, 29) = 28. 778, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 35; right: F(1, 29) = 35. 338, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 42; DLB—left: F(1, 29) = 28. 241, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 31; right: F(1, 29) = 18. 811, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 26) and bilateral posterior putamen (PD—left: F(1, 29) = 107. 531, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 77; right: F(1, 29) = 87. 525, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 72; DLB—left: F(1, 29) = 39. 910, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 48; right: F(1, 29) = 26. 882, P <. 001, ω 2 = 0. 38). DLB patients had lower hypothalamic 123I-FP-CIT BRs than healthy controls (F(1, 29) = 6. 059, P =. 020, ω 2 = 0. 12). In the voxel-based analysis, PD and DLB patients had significantly lower striatal binding than healthy controls. Both PD patients in the early disease stages and DLB patients have reduced availability of striatal DAT, and DLB patients lower hypothalamic SERT compared with healthy controls. These observations add to the growing body of evidence that PD and DLB are not merely dopaminergic diseases, thereby providing additional clinicopathological insights.

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YNICL Journal 2018 Journal Article

Lower 123I-FP-CIT binding to the striatal dopamine transporter, but not to the extrastriatal serotonin transporter, in Parkinson's disease compared with dementia with Lewy bodies

Merijn Joling
Chris Vriend
Jessica J. van der Zande
Afina W. Lemstra
Odile A. van den Heuvel
Jan Booij
Henk W. Berendse

In this retrospective cross-sectional study we compared 123I‑N‑ω‑fluoropropyl‑2β‑carbomethoxy‑3β‑(4‑iodophenyl)nortropane (123I-FP-CIT) binding to the striatal dopamine and the extrastriatal serotonin transporter (DAT and SERT, respectively) between Parkinson's disease (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) to gain more insight in the pathophysiology of the two diseases. We compared 123I-FP-CIT single photon emission computed tomography scans of, age-, gender matched patients with cognitive decline in same range of severity with PD (n = 53) or DLB (n = 53) using a regions of interest (ROIs) approach. We derived ROIs anatomically from individual magnetic resonance imaging brain scans. To corroborate the ROI findings, we performed additional whole-brain voxel-based analyses. In both ROI and voxel-based analyses, 123I-FP-CIT binding in PD patients was significantly lower in the bilateral posterior putamen than in DLB patients (left: F(1, 103) = 18. 363, P < 0. 001, ω 2 = 0. 14; right: F(1, 103) = 20. 434, P < 0. 001, ω 2 = 0. 15) (P corr < 0. 033). Caudate/putamen ratios were also significantly lower in DLB than in PD (U(105) = 724. 0, P < 0. 001). Extrastriatal SERT binding showed no difference between PD and DLB. These results suggest similar involvement of serotonergic structures in the degenerative process in PD and DLB.

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