The purpose of this work is to study phenotypic craniofacial traits of unaffected parents of individuals with nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without palate (NSCL/P). In order to evaluate these craniofacial traits, three dimensional photographs were obtained and landmarked to compare the sample of unaffected parents with a control sample. The sample was comprised of 40 unaffected fathers, 25 control males, 84 unaffected mothers, and 34 control females. Twenty-four three-dimensional landmarks were exported for analysis for each subject. For the purposes of this study, nine euclidean distances were subjected to a discriminant function analysis to evaluate their ability to discriminate between an unaffected parent and a control. In both the male and female analysis, certain craniofacial measurements correctly and significantly discriminated between unaffected parents and controls. It appears that certain facial traits are subclinical markers for enhanced genetic susceptibility to nonsyndromic cleft lip with or without palate.

The limbic system is hypothesized to play a critical role in pathophysiology of schizophrenia, with abnormalities thought to contribute to the expression of various aspects of the cognitive deficits and clinical symptoms. Psychosis is understood as highly heritable and family members, specifically non-affected siblings, while not displaying overt signs of the disorder, often exhibit features similar to those observed in patients, though to a lesser degree. The overarching aim of this project was to investigate the integrity of limbic circuitry in a sample of patients with schizophrenia and their non-affected siblings and examine its potential relationship with various clinical features of the illness. Cortical thickness of the entorhinal, parahippocampal, cingulate, and orbitofrontal cortices; as well as subcortical surface shape of the hippocampus and amygdala were the focus of this study. Findings from this study reveal relative similarity in limbic integrity between individuals with schizophrenia and theirnon-affected siblings, which are both disparate from healthy individuals. This suggests aspects of the neurobiological underpinnings of psychosis, particularly limbic regions, are genetically influenced regardless of symptom expression and are latent features in non-affected family members. Relationships between positive symptomatology and shape abnormalities of subcortical structures suggest a potential substrate for clinical characteristics in psychosis not evident in non-ill siblings.

Balance of motor network activity between the two brain hemispheres after stroke is crucial for functional recovery. Several studies have extensively studied the role of the affected brain hemisphere to better understand changes in motor network activity following stroke. Very few studies have examined the role of the unaffected brain hemisphere and confirmed the testretest reliability of connectivity measures on unaffected hemisphere. We recorded blood oxygenation level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals from nine stroke survivors with hemiparesis of the left or right hand. Participants performed a motor execution task with affected hand, unaffected hand, and both hands simultaneously. Participants returned for a repeat fMRI scan 1 week later. Using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), we evaluated effective connectivity among three motor areas: the primary motor area (M1), the premotor cortex (PMC) and the supplementary motor area for the affected and unaffected hemispheres separately. Five participants manual motor ability was assessed by Fugl-Meyer Motor Assessment scores and root-mean square error of participants tracking ability during a robot-assisted game. We found (i) that the task performance with the affected hand resulted in strengthening of the connectivity pattern for unaffected hemisphere, (ii) an identical network of the unaffected hemisphere when participants performed the task with their unaffected hand, and (iii) the pattern of directional connectivity observed in the affected hemisphere was identical for tasks using the affected hand only or both hands. Furthermore, paired t-test comparison found no significant differences in connectivity strength for any path when compared with one-week follow-up. Brain-behavior linear correlation analysis showed that the connectivity patterns in the unaffected hemisphere more accurately reflected the behavioral conditions than the connectivity patterns in the affected hemisphere. Above findings enrich our knowledge of unaffected brain hemisphere following stroke, which further strengthens our neurobiological understanding of stroke-affected brain and can help to effectively identify and apply stroke-treatments.

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