A preliminary study of inter-hemispheric resting-state mirror functional homotopy in drug-naive patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Objective To explore the pattern of inter-hemispheric resting-state mirror functional homotopy in the drug-naive obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Methods Twenty patients with OCD meeting with the DSM-Ⅳ-TR criteria and 20 gender-, age-, education-matched healthy subjects participated in the resting-state brain functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. The Y-BOCS, HAMD17 and HAMA were used to assess clinical symptoms (i.e. obsessive, compulsive, depressive and anxiety symptoms). Based on the data processing & analysis for (resting-state) brain imaging (DPABI) software, a voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) approach was used to explore the pattern of inter-hemispheric resting-state mirror functional homotopy in OCD; partial correlation analysis was used to analysis the relationship between the whole brain VMHC value and clinical symptoms in OCD. Results Compared with the controls, the OCD patients showed decreased VMHC values in the orbitofrontal cortex (0.76±0.23 vs. 0.39±0.13, t=-5.46, P<0.01, gaussian random field corrected, two-tailed); the VMHC value of bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was negatively correlated with obsessive thought (r=-0.912, P<0.01, Bonferroni correction). Conclusions Reduced interhemispheric resting-state functional homotopy in the orbitofrontal cortex is observed in OCD patients, and the interhemispheric resting-state functional homotopy in the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may be relate with obsessive thought of OCD patients. Key words: Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Magnetic resonance imaging; Voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity; Resting-state