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Véronique Daneault

Possible papers associated with this exact author name in Arrow. This page groups case-insensitive exact name matches and is not a full identity disambiguation profile.

3 papers

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YNICL Journal 2025 Journal Article

Sleep spindle density and morphology are resilient to post-traumatic gray matter volume loss

Narges Kalantari
Véronique Daneault
Hélène Blais
Claire André
Erlan Sanchez
Jean-Marc Lina
Caroline Arbour
Danielle Gilbert

Moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) leads to gray matter volume (GMV) loss, cognitive dysfunction, and persistent sleep-wake complaints. Given the link between GMV and sleep spindles in healthy adults and the role of spindles in neural plasticity and protecting sleep against disturbances, we investigated GMV-spindle associations following TBI. In this cross-sectional study, 27 adults with chronic moderate to severe TBI (32.0 ± 12.2 years old) and 32 healthy controls (29.2 ± 11.5 years old) underwent full-night polysomnography and 3-Tesla MRI. Spindle density, amplitude, frequency, duration, and sigma spectral power (11-16 Hz) were computed. We tested GMV-spindle associations in 1) clusters with GMV loss following TBI (right and left frontotemporal and left temporal) and 2) regions previously linked to spindles in healthy adults (hippocampus, insula, cingulate, supplementary motor area, cerebellum, Heschl's gyri, thalamus, medial prefrontal cortex, putamen, and pallidum). Multiple regression analyses were performed with Group as a moderator, controlled for age. Across all participants, higher spindle amplitude and sigma power were associated with larger GMVs in the left frontotemporal, left temporal, thalamic, and medial prefrontal regions. Faster spindle frequency was associated with larger GMV in most regions, though for the left and right frontotemporal regions and hippocampus, these associations were observed only in controls. No Group effects were found for spindle characteristics. The lack of stronger GMV-spindle associations following TBI and the absence of Group effects for spindle characteristics suggest spindles' resilience to post-traumatic GMV loss.

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YNICL Journal 2022 Journal Article

Medial temporal lobe and obstructive sleep apnea: Effect of sex, age, cognitive status and free-water

Marie-Ève Martineau-Dussault
Claire André
Véronique Daneault
Andrée-Ann Baril
Katia Gagnon
Hélène Blais
Dominique Petit
Jacques Y. Montplaisir

Medial temporal structures, namely the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex and the parahippocampal gyrus, are particularly vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease and hypoxemia. Here, we tested the associations between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) severity and medial temporal lobe volumes in 114 participants aged 55-86 years (35 % women). We also investigated the impact of sex, age, cognitive status, and free-water fraction correction on these associations. Increased OSA severity was associated with larger hippocampal and entorhinal cortex volumes in women, but not in men. Greater OSA severity also correlated with increased hippocampal volumes in participants with amnestic mild cognitive impairment, but not in cognitively unimpaired participants, regardless of sex. Using free-water corrected volumes eliminated all significant associations with OSA severity. Therefore, the increase in medial temporal subregion volumes may possibly be due to edema. Whether these structural manifestations further progress to neuronal death in non-treated OSA patients should be investigated.

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YNIMG Journal 2011 Journal Article

Impact of mindfulness on the neural responses to emotional pictures in experienced and beginner meditators

Véronique A. Taylor
Joshua Grant
Véronique Daneault
Geneviève Scavone
Estelle Breton
Sébastien Roffe-Vidal
Jérôme Courtemanche
Anaïs S. Lavarenne

There is mounting evidence that mindfulness meditation is beneficial for the treatment of mood and anxiety disorders, yet little is known regarding the neural mechanisms through which mindfulness modulates emotional responses. Thus, a central objective of this functional magnetic resonance imaging study was to investigate the effects of mindfulness on the neural responses to emotionally laden stimuli. Another major goal of this study was to examine the impact of the extent of mindfulness training on the brain mechanisms supporting the processing of emotional stimuli. Twelve experienced (with over 1000h of practice) and 10 beginner meditators were scanned as they viewed negative, positive, and neutral pictures in a mindful state and a non-mindful state of awareness. Results indicated that the Mindful condition attenuated emotional intensity perceived from pictures, while brain imaging data suggested that this effect was achieved through distinct neural mechanisms for each group of participants. For experienced meditators compared with beginners, mindfulness induced a deactivation of default mode network areas (medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices) across all valence categories and did not influence responses in brain regions involved in emotional reactivity during emotional processing. On the other hand, for beginners relative to experienced meditators, mindfulness induced a down-regulation of the left amygdala during emotional processing. These findings suggest that the long-term practice of mindfulness leads to emotional stability by promoting acceptance of emotional states and enhanced present-moment awareness, rather than by eliciting control over low-level affective cerebral systems from higher-order cortical brain regions. These results have implications for affect-related psychological disorders.

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