Li-Ming Hsu

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | UNC · Department of Radiology

Significance The default mode network (DMN) has been suggested to support a variety of internal-state functions in human. Because preclinical models can be used in translational studies of neuropsychiatric disorders, investigations of the DMN in these models may aid the understanding of both physiology and pathophysiology of the human DMN. To our k...

Although 60% of the US population have tried smoking cigarettes, only 16% smoke regularly. Identifying this susceptible subset of the population before the onset of nicotine dependence may encourage targeted early interventions to prevent regular smoking and/or minimize severity. While prospective neuroimaging in human populations can be challengin...

The development of brain-based biomarkers to assess nicotine dependence severity and treatment efficacy are essential to improve the current marginally effective treatment outcomes. Cross-sectional resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) studies in humans identified a circuit between the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the ventral striatu...

Accurate removal of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) signal outside the brain, a.k.a., skull stripping, is a key step in the brain image pre-processing pipelines. In rodents, this is mostly achieved by manually editing a brain mask, which is time-consuming and operator dependent. Automating this step is particularly challenging in rodents as compar...

Sertraline is one of the most commonly prescribed antidepressants. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by spontaneous thoughts that are laden with negative affect—a “malignant sadness”. Prior neuroimaging studies have identified abnormal resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in the spontaneous brain networks of MDD patients. But...

Alcohol misuse and, particularly adolescent drinking, is a major public health concern. While evidence suggests that adolescent alcohol use affects frontal brain regions that are important for cognitive control over behavior little is known about how acute alcohol exposure alters large-scale brain networks and how sex and age may moderate such effe...

Brain wiring redundancy counteracts aging-related cognitive decline by reserving additional communication channels as a neuroprotective mechanism. Such a mechanism plays a potentially important role in maintaining cognitive function during the early stages of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is characterized by sever...

The default mode network (DMN) is critical for self-referential mental processes, and its dysfunction is implicated in many neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the neurophysiological properties and task-based functional organization of the rodent DMN are poorly understood, limiting its translational utility. Here, we combine fiber photometry with...

Background To survive and thrive, many animals, including humans, have evolved goal-directed behaviors that can respond to specific physiological needs. An example is thirst, where the physiological need to maintain water balance drives the behavioral basic instinct to drink. Determining the neural basis of such behaviors, including thirst response...

Alzheimer′s disease (AD) is a serious neurodegenerative disorder without a clear understanding of the etiology and pathophysiology. Recent experimental data has suggested excitation-inhibition (E-I) imbalance as an essential element and critical regulator of AD pathology, but E-I imbalance has not been systematically mapped out in both local and la...

The default mode network (DMN) is closely associated with self-referential mental functions and its dysfunction is implicated in many neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the neurophysiological properties and task-based functional organization of the rodent DMN are poorly understood, limiting its translational utility. Here, we combine fiber-photom...

The default mode network (DMN) of the brain is functionally associated with a wide range of behaviors. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), and spectral fiber photometry to investigate the selective neuromodulatory effect of norepinephrine (NE)-releasing noradrenergic neurons in th...

Significance Although emerging evidence suggests that the hemodynamic response function (HRF) can vary by brain region and species, a single, canonical, human-based HRF is widely used in animal studies. Therefore, the development of flexible, accessible, brain-region specific HRF calculation approaches is paramount as hemodynamic animal studies bec...

Brain extraction is a critical pre-processing step in brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analytical pipelines. In rodents, this is often achieved by manually editing brain masks slice-by-slice, a time-consuming task where workloads increase with higher spatial resolution datasets. We recently demonstrated successful automatic brain extraction v...

Graph theory has been extensively used to investigate brain network topology and its changes in disease cohorts. However, many graph theoretic analysis-based brain network studies focused on the shortest paths or, more generally, cost-efficiency. In this work, we use two new concepts, connectedness and 2-connectedness, to measure different global p...

The default mode network (DMN) of the brain is involved in cognition, emotion regulation, impulsivity, and balancing between internally and externally focused states. Dysregulation of DMN has been implicated in several neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission...

Graph theory has been extensively used to investigate brain network topology and its changes in disease cohorts. However, many graph theoretic analysis-based brain network studies focused on the shortest paths or, more generally, cost-efficiency. In this work, we use two new concepts, connectedness and 2-connectedness, to measure different global p...

Evidence suggests divergent thinking is the cognitive basis of creative thoughts. Neuroimaging literature using resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) has revealed network reorganizations during divergent thinking. Recent studies have revealed the changes of network organizations when performing creativity tasks, but such brain reconfiguratio...

Functional brain development in early infancy is a highly dynamic and complex process. Understanding each brain region’s topological role and its development in the brain functional connectivity (FC) networks is essential for early disorder detection. A handful of previous studies have mostly focused on how FC network is changing regarding age. The...

Graph theory has been used extensively to investigate information exchange efficiency among brain regions represented as graph nodes. In this work, we propose a new metric to measure how the brain network is robust or resilient to any attack on its nodes and edges. The metric measures redundancy in the sense that it calculates the minimum number of...

Stroke is the most common cause of complex disability in Taiwan. After stroke onset, persistent physical practice or exercise in the rehabilitation procedure reorganizes neural assembly for reducing motor deficits, known as neuroplasticity. Neuroimaging literature showed rehabilitative effects specific to the brain networks of the sensorimotor netw...

The CA3 and CA1 principal cell fields of the hippocampus are vulnerable to aging, and age-related dysfunction in CA3 may be an early seed event closely linked to individual differences in memory decline. However, whether the differential vulnerability of CA3 and CA1 is associated with broader disruption in network-level functional interactions in r...

Spatiotemporal dynamics analysis of the human brain functional connectome and its early development in the first few years of life is tremendously essential for grasping such a shining jewel in life science as such a knowledge shed light on the long-standing mysteries of emerging and fast developing of various high-level cognitive abilities in such...

The infant brain experiences explosive growth in the first few years of life. The developing topology of the functional network mirrors the emergence of complex cognitive functions. However, early development of brain topological properties in infants is still largely unclear due to the dearth of high-quality longitudinal infant functional MRI (fMR...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that could cause severe cognitive damage to the patients. Diagnosis of AD at its preclinical stage, i.e., mild cognitive impairment (MCI), could help to prevent or slow down AD progression. With machine learning, automatic MCI diagnosis could be achieved. Most of the previous studies m...

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is a non-invasive functional imaging technique that has been widely used to investigate brain functional connectome. Noises and artifacts are dominant in the raw rs-fMRI, making effective noise removal a necessity prior to any subsequent analysis. Without requiring any additional biophys...

Background: The modular organization of brain networks in trigeminal neuralgia patients has remained largely unknown. We aimed to analyze the brain modules and intermodule connectivity in patients with trigeminal neuralgia before and after percutaneous radiofrequency rhizotomy treatment to identify specific modules that may be associated with the...

Cigarette smoking and resultant nicotine dependence remain major public health problems. Most smokers begin before the age of 18, yet preclinical models have insufficiently characterized the development of nicotine dependence in adolescence. To categorize the short-term effects of chronic nicotine administration throughout adolescence and adulthood...

The grief of bereavement is recognized as a severe psychosocial stressor that can trigger a variety of mental and physical disorders, and the long-lasting unresolved grief has a detrimental effect on brain functionality. Literature has documented mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) as an efficient treatment for improving well-being, specific...

Network analyses of structural connectivity in the brain have highlighted a set of highly connected hubs that are densely interconnected, forming a "rich-club" substrate in diverse species. Here, we demonstrate the existence of rich-club organization in functional brain networks of rats. Densely interconnected rich-club regions are found to be dist...

Anesthetics are commonly used in preclinical functional MRI studies. It is well appreciated that proper choice of anesthetics is of critical importance for maintaining a physiologically normal range of autonomic functioning. A recent study, using a low dose of dexmedetomidine (active isomer of medetomidine) in combination with a low dose of isoflur...

Objective: Predicting outcome in patients with primary intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) in the acute stage can provide information to determine the best therapeutic and rehabilitation strategies. We prospectively investigated the predictive value of the functional diffusion map (fDM) in the acute stage of ICH. Methods: 47 patients with ICH were e...

Objectives The pathophysiology of perihaematomal oedema (PO) surrounding a primary intracerebral haemorrhage (ICH) is complicated and incompletely understood. We prospectively investigated the components of PO with voxel-based analysis of the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value and assessed its predictive value for functional outcome. Design...