Jessica Foster-Dingley

Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience | NIN · Van Someren Research Group for Sleep & Cognition

Although past research has established a relationship between functional connectivity and cognitive function, less is known about which cognitive domains are associated with which specific functional networks. This study investigated associations between functional connectivity and global cognitive function and performance in the domains of memory,...

Objective: Insomnia disorder is the most common sleep disorder. A better understanding of insomnia-related deviations in the brain could inspire better treatment. Insufficiently recognized heterogeneity within the insomnia population could obscure involved brain circuits. The present study investigated whether structural brain connectivity deviatio...

Insomnia poses a high risk for depression. Brain mechanisms of sleep and mood improvement following cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia remain elusive. This longitudinal study evaluated whether (i) individual differences in baseline brain white matter microstructure predict improvements and (ii) intervention affects brain white matter micros...

Ageing is associated with functional reorganization that is mainly characterized by declining functional connectivity due to general neurodegeneration and increasing incidence of disease. Functional connectivity has been studied across the lifespan, however there is a paucity of research within the older groups (≥75 years) where neurodegeneration a...

Background: The highest risk of depression is conveyed by insomnia. This risk can be mitigated by sleep interventions. Understanding brain mechanisms underlying increased emotional stability following insomnia treatment could provide insight relevant to the prevention of depression. We here investigate how different sleep interventions alter emoti...

Neuroimaging and genetics studies have advanced our understanding of the neurobiology of sleep and its disorders. However, individual studies usually have limitations to identifying consistent and reproducible effects, including modest sample sizes, heterogeneous clinical characteristics and varied methodologies. These issues call for a large‐scale...

The cerebellum is increasingly recognised for its role in modulation of cognition, behaviour, and affect. The present study examined the relation between structural cerebellar damage (grey matter volume (GMV), white matter hyperintensities (WMHs), lacunar infarcts (LIs) and microbleeds (MBs)) and measures of cognitive, psychological (i.e. symptoms...

Background: Major depressive disorder is among the most burdening and costly chronic health hazards. Since its prognosis is poor and treatment effectiveness is moderate at best, prevention would be the strategy of first choice. Insomnia may be the best modifiable risk factor. Insomnia is highly prevalent (4-10%) and meta-analysis estimates ±13% of...

BACKGROUND In older persons, both high and low blood pressure (BP) levels are associated with symptoms of apathy. Population characteristics, such as burden of cerebral small‐vessel disease (CSVD), may underlie these apparently contradictory findings. We aimed to explore, in older persons, whether the burden of CSVD affects the association between...

Study Objectives Suggested neural correlates of insomnia disorder have been hard to replicate. Even the most consistent finding, altered white-matter microstructure in the anterior limb of the internal capsule, is based on a handful studies. The urge for replicable targets to understand the underlying mechanisms of insomnia made us study white-matt...

Insomnia Disorder (ID) is a prevalent and persistent condition, yet its neural substrate is not well understood. The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics of ID suggest that vulnerability involves distributed brain networks rather than a single brain area or connection. The present study utilized probabilistic diffusion tractography...

Insomnia Disorder (ID) is the second-most common mental disorder and has a far-reaching impact on daytime functioning. A meta-analysis indicates that, of all cognitive domains, declarative memory involving the hippocampus is most affected in insomnia. Hippocampal functioning has consistently been shown to be sensitive to experimental sleep deprivat...

Objective: Particularly in old age, orthostatic hypotension has been related to worse cognitive functioning, possibly caused by reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF). This study investigates whether orthostatic hypotension in older people is associated with cognitive dysfunction and, if so, whether this association is mediated by cerebral vascular dam...

Background and purpose: Small vessel disease is a major cause of neurocognitive dysfunction in the elderly. Small vessel disease may manifest as white matter hyperintensities, lacunar infarcts, cerebral microbleeds, and atrophy, all of which are visible on conventional MR imaging or as microstructural changes determined by diffusion tensor imaging...

Recently, cerebral structural covariance networks (SCNs) have been shown to partially overlap with functional networks. However, although for some of these SCNs a strong association with age is reported, less is known about the association of individual SCNs with separate cognition domains and the potential mediation effect in this of cerebral smal...

Objective: The Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS)-3A, a three-item subset of the GDS-15, is increasingly used as a measure for apathy in research settings to assess factors associating with this neuropsychiatric syndrome. We aimed to assess how accurately the GDS-3A discriminates between presence and absence of apathy in two populations of community...

In Reply We thank Imprialos et al for their comments and interest regarding the results of the DANTE study Leiden1 published in a recent issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. Imprialos et al asked for 2 important additional analyses regarding the effect of pulse pressure (PP) and estimated glomerular filtration rate on cognitive function.A previous publ...

Background: the relationship between antihypertensive medication and orthostatic hypotension in older persons remains ambiguous, due to conflicting observational evidence and lack of data of clinical trials. Objective: to assess the effect of discontinuation of antihypertensive medication on orthostatic hypotension in older persons with mild cognit...

The accuracy of cerebral blood flow measurements using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling can be affected by vascular factors other than cerebral blood flow, such as flow velocity and arterial transit time. We aimed to elucidate the effects of common variations in vascular anatomy of the circle of Willis on pseudo-continuous arterial spin lab...

Many studies showing a relation between low blood pressure (BP) and adverse health outcomes in older persons suggest that low BP gives rise to reduced cerebral blood flow (CBF). However, limited evidence is available about this association. Baseline data of 203 participants in the Discontinuation of Antihypertensive Treatment in the Elderly (DANTE)...

Observational studies indicate that lower blood pressure (BP) increases risk for cognitive decline in elderly individuals. Older persons are at risk for impaired cerebral autoregulation; lowering their BP may compromise cerebral blood flow and cognitive function. To assess whether discontinuation of antihypertensive treatment in older persons with...

In contrast to middle age, it is unclear whether blood pressure (BP) in older persons is associated with cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD). The authors evaluated the association of BP with signs of cSVD as well as gray and white matter integrity in older persons. In 220 participants aged 75 years and older from the Discontinuation of Antihyperte...

Both high and low blood pressure (BP) have been positively as well as negatively associated with brain volumes in a variety of populations. The objective of this study was to investigate whether BP is associated with cortical and subcortical brain volumes in older old persons with mild cognitive deficits. Within the Discontinuation of Antihypertens...

Objectives To examine the association between blood pressure (BP) measures and symptoms of apathy and depression in older adults with various levels of functional ability.DesignCross-sectional study using baseline data from the Discontinuation of Antihypertensive Treatment in Elderly people (DANTE) Study Leiden.SettingPrimary care setting, the Neth...

Several methods are in use for analyzing (11)C-Pittsburgh compound-B ((11)C-PiB) data. The objective of this study was to identify the method of choice for measuring longitudinal changes in specific (11)C-PiB binding. Dynamic 90-min (11)C-PiB baseline and follow-up scans (interval, 30 ± 5 mo) were obtained for 7 Alzheimer disease (AD) patients, 11...

To investigate the association between visit-to-visit variability in blood pressure and cognitive function in old age (>70 years). Prospective cohort study. PROSPER (PROspective Study of Pravastatin in the Elderly at Risk) study, a collaboration between centres in Ireland, Scotland, and the Netherlands. 5461 participants, mean age 75.3 years, who w...

[(11)C]PIB and [(18)F]FDDNP are PET tracers for in vivo detection of the neuropathology underlying Alzheimer's disease (AD). [(18)F]FDG is a glucose analogue and its uptake reflects metabolic activity. The purpose of this study was to examine longitudinal changes in these tracers in patients with AD or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and in healthy...

The aim of the present study was to investigate microglia activation over time following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to relate these findings to glutamate release. Sequential dynamic (R)-[(11)C]PK11195 PET scans were performed in rats 24 hours before (baseline), and one and ten days after TBI using controlled cortical impact, or a sham procedu...