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Luigi Lorenzini

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4 papers

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YNIMG Journal 2026 Journal Article

Decreased functional connectivity in post-COVID syndrome patients with high neuroinflammatory activity

Denise Visser
Leo Pieperhoff
Luigi Lorenzini
Sandeep S.V. Golla
Sander C.J. Verfaillie
Anouk Verveen
Elsmarieke van de Giessen
Marijke E. den Hollander

INTRODUCTION: Previous research suggests some post-COVID patients with neurocognitive complaints (NCC) show neuroinflammation. Like in inflammatory diseases, this may affect network connectivity. This study aimed to compare resting-state functional connectivity in individuals with and without i) neuroinflammation and ii) persistent post-COVID NCC. METHODS: F]DPA-714 PET scan with arterial sampling for neuroinflammation, and 3T MRI scan for resting-state functional connectivity. Twenty resting-state networks (RSNs) were identified using independent component analysis. Group differences in within-RSN connectivity were analyzed using general linear models. Differences in subcortico-cortical between-RSN connectivity-between brainstem or thalamus and cortical RSNs-were assessed using interaction models. RESULTS: F]DPA-714 binding in participants with NCC. Lastly, thalamic-somatomotor and brainstem-control network connectivity (between-RSN) was altered in both individuals with persistent NCC and those with neuroinflammation, with thalamic-somatomotor changes mainly driven by NCC and brainstem-control changes by neuroinflammation. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that neuroinflammation in individuals with persistent NCC after SARS-CoV-2 infection is linked to altered functional connectivity in RSNs central to higher-order cognitive functions.

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YNICL Journal 2025 Journal Article

Amyloid PET predicts atrophy in older adults without dementia: Results from the AMYPAD Prognostic & Natural History study

Leonard Pieperhoff
Luigi Lorenzini
Sophie Mastenbroek
Mario Tranfa
Mahnaz Shekari
Alle Meije Wink
Robin Wolz
Sylke Grootoonk

Highlights • Aβ-PET predicts atrophy in key brain regions in older adults without dementia.• Fusiform volumetric loss is linked to Aβ independent of CSF tau levels.• Temporal atrophy is stronger in women with higher Aβ burden.• APOE-ε4 carriers show larger Aβ-driven frontal & hippocampal atrophy.

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YNICL Journal 2022 Journal Article

The Open-Access European Prevention of Alzheimer’s Dementia (EPAD) MRI dataset and processing workflow

Luigi Lorenzini
Silvia Ingala
Alle Meije Wink
Joost P.A. Kuijer
Viktor Wottschel
Mathijs Dijsselhof
Carole H. Sudre
Sven Haller

The European Prevention of Alzheimer Dementia (EPAD) is a multi-center study that aims to characterize the preclinical and prodromal stages of Alzheimer's Disease. The EPAD imaging dataset includes core (3D T1w, 3D FLAIR) and advanced (ASL, diffusion MRI, and resting-state fMRI) MRI sequences. Here, we give an overview of the semi-automatic multimodal and multisite pipeline that we developed to curate, preprocess, quality control (QC), and compute image-derived phenotypes (IDPs) from the EPAD MRI dataset. This pipeline harmonizes DICOM data structure across sites and performs standardized MRI preprocessing steps. A semi-automated MRI QC procedure was implemented to visualize and flag MRI images next to site-specific distributions of QC features - i.e. metrics that represent image quality. The value of each of these QC features was evaluated through comparison with visual assessment and step-wise parameter selection based on logistic regression. IDPs were computed from 5 different MRI modalities and their sanity and potential clinical relevance were ascertained by assessing their relationship with biological markers of aging and dementia. The EPAD v1500.0 data release encompassed core structural scans from 1356 participants 842 fMRI, 831 dMRI, and 858 ASL scans. From 1356 3D T1w images, we identified 17 images with poor quality and 61 with moderate quality. Five QC features - Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Contrast to Noise Ratio (CNR), Coefficient of Joint Variation (CJV), Foreground-Background energy Ratio (FBER), and Image Quality Rate (IQR) - were selected as the most informative on image quality by comparison with visual assessment. The multimodal IDPs showed greater impairment in associations with age and dementia biomarkers, demonstrating the potential of the dataset for future clinical analyses.

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YNICL Journal 2021 Journal Article

Atypically high influence of subcortical activity on primary sensory regions in autism

Luigi Lorenzini
Guido van Wingen
Leonardo Cerliani

BACKGROUND: Hypersensitivity, stereotyped behaviors and attentional problems in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are compatible with inefficient filtering of undesired or irrelevant sensory information at early stages of neural processing. This could stem from the persistent overconnectivity between primary sensory regions and deep brain nuclei in both children and adults with ASD - as reported by several previous studies - which could reflect a decreased or arrested maturation of brain connectivity. However, it has not yet been investigated whether this overconnectivity can be modelled as an excessive directional influence of subcortical brain activity on primary sensory cortical regions in ASD, with respect to age-matched typically developing (TD) individuals. METHODS: To this aim, we used dynamic causal modelling to estimate (1) the directional influence of subcortical activity on cortical processing and (2) the functional segregation of primary sensory cortical regions from subcortical activity in 166 participants with ASD and 193 TD participants from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE). We then specifically tested the hypothesis that the age-related changes of these indicators of brain connectivity would differ between the two groups. RESULTS: We found that in TD participants age was significantly associated with decreased influence of subcortical activity on cortical processing, paralleled by an increased functional segregation of cortical sensory processing from subcortical activity. Instead these effects were highly reduced and mostly absent in ASD participants, suggesting a delayed or arrested development of the segregation between subcortical and cortical sensory processing in ASD. CONCLUSION: This atypical configuration of subcortico-cortical connectivity in ASD can result in an excessive amount of unprocessed sensory input relayed to the cortex, which is likely to impact cognitive functioning in everyday situations where it is beneficial to limit the influence of basic sensory information on cognitive processing, such as activities requiring focused attention or social interactions.

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