Marisa M Silveri

McLean Hospital · McLean Imaging Center

Binge alcohol consumption is associated with multiple neurobiological consequences, including altered neurophysiology, brain structure, and functional activation. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) studies have demonstrated neurochemical alterations in the frontal lobe of alcohol users, although most studies focused on older, alcohol-dependent s...

Background: The brain undergoes major remodeling during adolescence, resulting in improved cognitive control and decision-making and reduced impulsivity, components of behavior mediated in part by the maturing frontal lobe. γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA), the main inhibitory neurotransmitter system, also matures during adolescence, with frontal lobe G...

Alcohol use typically is initiated during adolescence, a period that coincides with critical structural and functional maturation of the brain. Brain maturation and associated improvements in decision making continue into the third decade of life, reaching a plateau within the period referred to as emerging adulthood (18-24 years). This particular...

Sensitivity to the hypnotic effects of ethanol was examined in Sprague-Dawley male and female rats at 16, 26, 36, 46, 56, or 96 days postnatally. Following administration of 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, or 5.0 g/kg of a 17% v/v ethanol solution, sleep times were recorded and blood alcohol levels (BALs) and brain alcohol levels (BrALs) were measured upon awakenin...

Aims: Maintaining abstinence from alcohol use disorder (AUD) is extremely challenging, partially due to increased symptoms of anxiety and stress that trigger relapse. Rodent models of AUD have identified that the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) contributes to symptoms of anxiety-like behavior and drug-seeking during abstinence. In human...

Background: A substantial volume of literature suggests that religious factors buffer against alcohol/substance use among adults, but research among adolescents is sparse. Further, few studies in this area have been prospective, and therefore it is unclear how religion may impact less alcohol/substance use among adolescents. Method: We prospectivel...

Introduction Sleep problems are prevalent throughout the population, but little is known about the brain mechanisms that differentiate good and poor sleepers. We studied the association between brain neurochemistry, as measured by proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS), and sleep quality as measured by actigraphy. We hypothesized that bett...

Dispositional forgiveness is positively associated with many facets of wellbeing and has protective implications against depression and anxiety in adolescents. However, little work has been done to examine neurobiological aspects of forgiveness as they relate to clinical symptoms. In order to better understand the neural mechanisms supporting the p...

Objectives: Spiritual psychotherapy addresses mental health concerns by integrating spirituality/religion into treatment. There is scant research on how such approaches interact with sexual minority status. We sought to identify and compare how sexual minority and heterosexual patients respond to spiritual psychotherapy. Method: We collected dat...

Background: The transition to college is associated with increased risk of alcohol misuse and a consequent increase in negative, alcohol-related social and health impacts. Traits associated with ongoing brain maturation during this period, including impulsivity in emotional contexts, could contribute to risky alcohol use. Methods: This functiona...

The brain undergoes substantial structural and functional remodeling during adolescence, including alterations in memory-processing regions influenced by stress. This study evaluated brain activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during spatial memory performance using a virtual Morris water task (MWT) and examined the associat...

Aims Alcohol use disorder (AUD), has been shown to have harmful cognitive and physiological effects, including altered brain chemistry. Further, although men and women may differ in vulnerability to the neurobiological effects of AUD, results of existing studies have been conflicting. Brain metabolite levels and cognitive functions were examined in...

Previous research suggests that patients receiving spiritual psychotherapy may have better outcomes when treatment is provided by nonreligious clinicians, compared to religious clinicians. We examined these effects within a large and clinically heterogeneous sample of patients (N = 1,443) receiving Spiritual Psychotherapy for Inpatient, Residential...

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) metabolism is implicated in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and may be altered in prefrontal-limbic brain regions involved in arousal regulation. This study used proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to test the hypothesis that PTSD and trauma-exposed non-PTSD comparison (TENC) adults have significantly di...

Importance Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals, who have a gender identity that differs from their sex assigned at birth, are at increased risk of mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, self-injurious behavior, and suicidality, relative to cisgender peers. Objective To examine mental health outcomes among TGD vs cisgen...

Background For individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), long‐term recovery is difficult in part due to symptoms of anxiety that occur during early abstinence and can trigger relapse. Research in rodent models of AUD has identified the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), a small, sexually dimorphic, subcortical region, as critical for re...

Spets and Slotnick present a meta-analysis on long-term memory and sex differences. Overall findings indicate greater brain activation in men than women during memory performance. Merits of the activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis include considering study parameters and equating performance to enhance interpretability of activation diffe...

Background and Aims: Large-scale neurocognitive brain networks are necessary to coordinate social cognition. Regions of prefrontal cortex that are key nodes in these networks are highly vulnerable to alcohol neurotoxicity, which may link poor social function and alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, there is very little research on how brain network...

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a debilitating disorder that interferes with daily functioning, and that occurs at higher rates in women than in men. Structural and functional alterations in hippocampus and frontal lobe have been reported in MDD, which likely contribute to the multifaceted nature of MDD. One area impacted by MDD is hippocampal-m...

Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a chronic, relapsing disease that impacts almost a third of Americans. Despite effective treatments for attaining sobriety, the majority of patients relapse within a year, making relapse a substantial barrier to long‐term treatment success. A major factor contributing to relapse is heightened negative affect that resul...

Exposure to early-life adversity (ELA) increases the risk for psychopathologies associated with amygdala-prefrontal cortex (PFC) circuits. While sex differences in vulnerability have been identified with a clear need for individualized intervention strategies, the neurobiological substrates of ELA-attributable differences remain unknown due to a pa...

Objective: To determine if a 12-week yoga intervention (YI) was associated with increased gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels and decreased depressive symptoms in participants with major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods : Subjects were randomized to a high-dose group (HDG) of three YIs a week and a low-dose group (LDG) of two YIs a week. Thala...

Pooling magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data across research studies, or utilizing shared data from imaging repositories, presents exceptional opportunities to advance and enhance reproducibility of neuroscience research. However, scanner confounds hinder pooling data collected on different scanners or across software and hardware upgrades on the...

Background: While many adolescents exhibit risky behavior, teenagers with a family history (FH+) of an alcohol use disorder (AUD) are at a heightened risk for earlier initiation of alcohol use, a more rapid escalation in frequency and quantity of alcohol consumption and developing a subsequent AUD in comparison to youth without such family history...

Background: Adverse early experiences significantly alter behavioral and neural trajectories via aberrant brain maturation. Children with a history of early life stress (ELS) exhibit maladaptive behaviors and increased risk of mental illness later in life. Evidence in ELS-exposed humans identifies a role of atypical corticolimbic development; speci...

Introduction Sustained performance tasks are prone to the time-on-task (TOT) effect, which is further amplified by sleep deprivation (SD). Previous research has found that individual differences in the TOT effect during SD are modulated by genetic markers. However, it remains unknown how neural markers are associated with TOT impairments during SD....

Objective: This study compared brain energy metabolism, as measured by cerebral concentrations of glutamate (Glu), glutamine (Gln), and N-acetyl aspartate (NAA), in older age bipolar depression (OABD) to that of psychiatrically healthy comparison subjects using proton (1H) magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging at 4-Tesla. Metabolite levels were...

Background: Heavy episodic drinking (HED) is a common behavior among college students that is associated with severe negative consequences. Negative reinforcement processes have been applied to elucidate mechanisms underlying relationships between consumption of alcohol and the desire to alleviate negative feelings. Distress tolerance (DT) and emo...

The frontal cortex undergoes substantial structural and functional changes during adolescence and significant developmental changes also occur in the hippocampus. Both of these regions are notably vulnerable to alcohol and other substance use, which is typically initiated during adolescence. Identifying measures of brain function during adolescence...

Large multi-site studies that pool magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data across research sites or studies, or that utilize shared data from imaging repositories, present exceptional opportunities to advance neuroscience and enhance reproducibility of neuroimaging research. However, both scanner and site variability are confounds that hinder pooling...

Introduction There are substantial inter-individual differences in vulnerability to neurobehavioral impairment due to sleep loss. Previous research demonstrates that genetic markers may predict these inter-individual differences. However, it remains unknown if inter-individual differences in performance are also predictable by neural markers. Here...

Background: Childhood maltreatment is associated with alterations in morphology of stress susceptible brain regions. Maltreatment is also known to markedly increase risk for psychopathology and to have an enduring disruptive effect on sleep. Objective: To determine whether abnormalities in sleep continuity have effects on brain morphometry and to e...

Objectives: The aims of this study were to assess the effects of an intervention of Iyengar yoga and coherent breathing at five breaths per minute on depressive symptoms and to determine optimal intervention yoga dosing for future studies in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods: Subjects were randomized to the high-dose group (...

The transition to college is associated with an increase in heavy episodic alcohol use, or binge drinking, during a time when the prefrontal cortex and prefrontal-limbic circuitry continue to mature. Traits associated with this immaturity, including impulsivity in emotional contexts, may contribute to risky and heavy episodic alcohol consumption. T...

Objectives: The aims of this study were to assess the effects of an intervention of Iyengar yoga and coherent breathing at five breaths per minute on depressive symptoms and to determine optimal intervention yoga dosing for future studies in individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). Methods: Subjects were randomized to the high-dose group (...

Hippocampus atrophy is implicated in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and may partly reflect stress-induced glutamate excitotoxicity that culminates in neuron injury and manifests as re-experiencing symptoms and other memory abnormalities. This study used high-field proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to determine whether PTSD is asso...

Magnetic resonance (MR) techniques provide opportunities to non-invasively characterize neurobiological milestones of adolescent brain development. Juxtaposed to the critical finalization of brain development is initiation of alcohol and substance use, and increased frequency and quantity of use, patterns that can lead to abuse and addiction. This...

Introduction: Sleep deprivation (SD) has been shown to increase food intake relative to energy expenditure. One proposed pathway involves alterations of leptin-sensitive systems that regulate metabolism and appetite. Some evidence suggests that this association may differ for men and women. The role of γ-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) in relation to slee...

The unpredictable and sometimes incomprehensible moods and behaviors of a teenager can be a head-scratching mystery-especially to parents. Hormones, boredom, social media, peer pressure, and drugs and alcohol are just a few of the factors to consider. Frances E. Jensen, M.D., professor and chair of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and th...

The prevalence of marijuana (MJ) use among youth and its legalization for medical or recreational use has intensified public health endeavors of understanding MJ effects on brain structure and function. Studies indicate that MJ use is related to impaired cognitive performance, and altered functional brain activation and chemistry in adolescents and...

Neuroimaging studies of individuals with family histories of alcoholism provide evidence suggesting neurobiological risk factors for alcoholism. Youth family history positive (FH+) for alcoholism exhibit increased impulsivity compared to family history negative (FH-) peers in conjunction with altered functional activation in prefrontal cortex, incl...

Background: The brain undergoes dynamic and requisite changes into the early 20s that are associated with improved cognitive efficiency, particularly in prefrontal regions that are still undergoing neuromaturation. As alcohol consumption is typically initiated and progresses to binge drinking (BD) during this time, the objective of the present stu...

A growing body of research has documented structural and functional brain development during adolescence, yet little is known about neurochemical changes that occur during this important developmental period. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is a well-developed technology that permits the in vivo quantification of multiple brain neurochemicals...

Increased reactivity of the insular cortex and decreased activity of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are seen in functional imaging studies of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and may partly explain the persistent fear and anxiety proneness that characterize the disorder. A possible neurochemical correlate is altered function of the...

Social cognition matures dramatically during adolescence and into early adulthood, supported by continued improvements in inhibitory control. During this time, developmental changes in interpreting and responding to social signals such as facial expressions also occur. In the present study, subjects performed a Go No-Go task that required them to r...

Alterations in memory function due to alcohol exposure have been observed in both animal models and human populations. The human literature on neurocognitive consequences of binge alcohol use in emerging adults has not systematically investigated its potential negative impacts on visuospatial memory. For instance, these impacts have not yet been as...

Marijuana (MJ) remains the most widely used illicit drug of abuse, and accordingly, is associated with adverse effects on mental and physical health, and neurocognitive decline. Studies investigating the neurobiology of underlying MJ effects have demonstrated structural and functional alterations in brain areas that contain moderate to high concent...

The effects of chronic marijuana (MRJ) use on neurochemistry are not well characterized. Previously, altered global myo-Inositol (mI) concentrations and distribution in white matter were associated with impulsivity and mood symptoms in young MRJ-dependent men. The objective of this study was to retrospectively examine previously collected data, to...

Objective: Late-life depression has been hypothesized to have a neurodegenerative component that leads to impaired executive function and increases in subcortical white matter hyperintensities. Phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can quantify several important phosphorus metabolites in the brain, particularly the anabolic precursors a...

Numerous studies have reported neurocognitive impairments associated with chronic marijuana use. Given that the hippocampus contains a high density of cannabinoid receptors, hippocampal-mediated cognitive functions, including visuospatial memory, may have increased vulnerability to chronic marijuana use. Thus, the current study examined brain activ...

Difficulty monitoring and inhibiting impulsive behaviors has been reported in marijuana (MJ) smokers; neuroimaging studies, which examined frontal systems in chronic MJ smokers, have reported alterations during inhibitory tasks. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides a quantitative estimate of white matter integrity at the microstructural level. W...

Chronic marijuana (MRJ) use is associated with altered cognition and mood state, altered brain metabolites, and functional and structural brain changes. The objective of this study was to apply proton magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging (MRSI) to compare proton metabolite levels in 15 young men with MRJ dependence and 11 healthy non-using (NU)...

Children and adolescents, family history positive (FH+) for alcoholism, exhibit differences in brain structure and functional activation when compared to family history negative (FH-) counterparts. Given that frontal brain regions, and associated reciprocal connections with limbic structures, undergo the most dramatic maturational changes during ad...

Introduction Examination of neuropsychological functioning, both in healthy populations and in individuals with brain injury, has provided important information with regard to lateralization of cognitive function, sex differences in neuropsychological performance, functional differences associated with disconnection syndromes, and cognitive capacit...