Publications by authors named "Kristof Vansteelandt"

Resting-state functional MRI (rsfMRI) could enable preoperative risk assessment and intraoperative guidance for patients who cannot undergo task-based fMRI (tbfMRI). To ascertain rsfMRI's applicability, we investigated differences in accuracy between tbfMRI with a voxel size of 1.8 x 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: motor dysfunction, presenting as an altered quantity or quality of movements, is common in late life depression (LLD) but poorly understood. We characterized motor dysfunction with a multimodal clinical-experimental assessment and investigated associations with depressive symptoms, psychotropic medication and falls.

Methods: 75 participants ≥60 yr.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Cognitive side effects, such as memory loss, associated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) have been extensively studied. However, knowledge about (sub)acute confusional states during ECT is limited, particularly in older adults with depression. Their incidence, recurrence, and co-occurrence remain unclear.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The premanifest stage in carriers of hexanucleotide repeat expansions in the gene (C9RE) is associated with memory impairment. The present study examines whether the impairment is general across domains or disproportionately affects specific stimulus categories such as socioemotional events, and its underlying functional neuroanatomy.

Methods: This task-based fMRI-study included 21 premanifest C9RE (preC9RE) carriers and 24 controls.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Late-life depression (LLD) is characterized by medial temporal lobe (MTL) abnormalities. Although gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) differences in LLD have been reported, few studies have investigated them concurrently. Moreover, the impact of aetiological factors, such as neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular burden, on tissue differences remains elusive.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Acute exercise has been associated with cognitive improvements, particularly in memory processes linked to the hippocampus, such as the ability to discriminate between similar stimuli, called hippocampal pattern separation. This can be assessed behaviorally with a mnemonic discrimination task and neurally with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Additionally, previous research has shown an emotional modulatory effect on pattern separation, involving the amygdala.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To investigate whether tau accumulation is higher in late life depression (LLD) compared to non-depressed cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults. To situate these findings in the neurodegeneration model of LLD by assessing group differences in tau and grey matter volume (GMV) between LLD, non-depressed CU and mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's Disease (MCI).

Design: Monocentric, cross-sectional study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To investigate the efficacy of closed-loop acoustic stimulation (CLAS) during slow-wave sleep (SWS) to enhance slow-wave activity (SWA) and SWS in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) across multiple nights and to explore associations between stimulation, participant characteristics, and individuals' SWS response.

Design: A 2-week, open-label at-home intervention study utilizing the DREEM2 headband to record sleep data and administer CLAS during SWS.

Setting And Participants: Fifteen older patients with AD (6 women, mean age: 76.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Accurate presurgical brain mapping enables preoperative risk assessment and intraoperative guidance. This cross-sectional study investigated whether constrained spherical deconvolution (CSD) methods were more accurate than diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)-based methods for presurgical white matter mapping using intraoperative direct electrical stimulation (DES) as the ground truth.

Methods: Five different tractography methods were compared (three DTI-based and two CSD-based) in 22 preoperative neurosurgical patients undergoing surgery with DES mapping.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) related anxiety (ERA) is a common phenomenon with high individual variability. The way patients cognitively cope with the prospects of receiving ECT could be a mechanism explaining individual differences in ERA. Cognitive coping like monitoring (information seeking, paying attention to consequences) and blunting (seeking distraction and reassurance) has been linked to anxiety in various medical settings, with monitoring leading to more and blunting to less anxiety.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: In psychogeriatric units for patients with dementia and behavioral problems, aggression is prevalent. Predictions and timely interventions of aggression are essential to create a safe environment and prevent adverse outcomes. Our study aimed to determine whether aggression severity early during admission to these units could be used as an indicator of adverse outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The recent network perspective of depression conceptualizes depression as a dynamic network of causally related symptoms, that contrasts with the traditional view of depression as a discrete latent entity that causes all symptoms. Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is an effective treatment for severe depression, but little is known about the temporal trajectories of symptom improvement during a course of ECT.

Objective: To gain insight into the dynamics of depressive symptoms in individuals treated with ECT.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: Self-esteem and self-esteem stability are important factors during adolescence and young adulthood that can be negatively impacted by childhood adversity and psychiatric symptoms. We examined whether childhood adversity and psychiatric symptoms are associated with decreased global self-esteem as well as increased self-esteem instability as measured with experience sampling method. In addition, we examined if childhood adversity moderates the association between psychiatric symptoms and self-esteem outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To investigate whether mild motor signs (MMS) in old age correlate with synaptic density in the brain.

Background: Normal aging is associated with a decline in movement quality and quantity, commonly termed "mild parkinsonian signs" or more recently MMS. Whether MMS stem from global brain aging or pathology within motor circuits remains unresolved.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of medical students regarding electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and how various information sources influenced these perspectives.
  • A survey involving 295 first-year and 149 final-year students from KU Leuven showed that while final-year students had better knowledge and attitudes towards ECT, both groups scored below 50% in their overall knowledge.
  • The findings suggest that limited instruction on ECT in medical education contributes to ongoing misinformation, and reliance on media as a source of information can lead to negative attitudes that should be addressed in the curriculum.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Belgium is one of the few countries worldwide where euthanasia on the grounds of unbearable suffering caused by a psychiatric disorder is legally possible. In April 2010 euthanasia was carried out on a 38-year-old Belgian woman with borderline personality disorder and/or autism. After a complaint by the family, three physicians were referred to the Court of Assizes on the charge of "murder by poisoning".

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Mnemonic enhanced memory has been observed for negative events. Here, we investigate its association with spatiotemporal attention, consolidation, and age. An ingenious method to study visual attention for emotional stimuli is eye tracking.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: It has been argued that symptom onset in neurodegeneration reflects the overload of compensatory mechanisms. The present study aimed to investigate whether neural functional compensation can be observed in the manifest neurodegenerative disease stage, by focusing on a core deficit in frontotemporal dementia, i.e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study looked at how anxiety related to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) changes during treatment, especially in the maintenance phase (M-ECT).
  • While anxiety decreased during the initial ECT treatment, it stayed pretty much the same during the M-ECT phase.
  • Patients with different types of depression had different experiences with anxiety during the acute treatment, but afterward, both their depression and anxiety levels remained stable during maintenance ECT sessions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The risk of relapse following successful acute-phase treatment of late-life depression (LLD), including electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), is substantial. In order to improve reliable prediction of individuals' risk of relapse, we assessed the association between individual residual symptoms following a successful acute course of ECT for LLD and relapse at six-month follow-up. This prospective cohort study was part of the MODECT study, which included 110 patients aged 55 years and older with major depressive disorder.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the most effective treatment for late-life depression (LLD). Research addressing long-term outcome following an acute course of ECT for LLD is limited. We aimed to describe relapse, cognitive impairment and survival 5 years after a treatment with ECT for severe LLD, and assess the association of clinical characteristics with all three outcome measures.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Amyloid positron emission tomography (PET) and hippocampal volume derived from magnetic resonance imaging may be useful clinical biomarkers for differentiating between geriatric depression and Alzheimer's disease (AD). Here we investigated the incremental value of using hippocampal volume and 18F-flutemetmol amyloid PET measures in tandem and sequentially to improve discrimination in unclassified participants. Two approaches were compared in 41 participants with geriatric depression and 27 participants with probable AD: (1) amyloid and hippocampal volume combined in one model and (2) classification based on hippocampal volume first and then subsequent stratification using standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR)-determined amyloid positivity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF