Abstract
Dysconnectivity hypothesis posits that schizophrenia is a disorder with dysconnectivity of the cortico-cerebellar-thalamic-cortical circuit (CCTCC). However, it remains unclear to the changes of the cerebral connectivity with the cerebellum in schizophrenia patients and unaffected siblings. Forty-nine patients with first-episode, drug-naive schizophrenia patients, 46 unaffected siblings of schizophrenia patients and 46 healthy controls participated in the study. Seed-based resting-state functional connectivity approach was employed to analyze the data. Compared with the controls, the patients and the siblings share increased default-mode network (DMN) seed – right Crus II connectivity. The patients have decreased right dorsal attention network (DAN) seed – bilateral cerebellum 4,5 connectivity relative to the controls. By contrast, the siblings exhibit increased FC between the right DAN seed and the right cerebellum 6 and right cerebellum 4,5 compared to the controls. No other abnormal connectivities (executive control network and salience network) are observed in the patients/siblings relative to the controls. There are no correlations between abnormal cerebellar-cerebral connectivities and clinical variables. Cerebellar-cerebral connectivity of brain networks within the cerebellum are differently affected in first-episode, drug-naive schizophrenia patients and unaffected siblings. Increased DMN connectivity with the cerebellum may serve as potential endophenotype for schizophrenia.
Highlights
Can serve as potential endophenotypes for schizophrenia
A critical issue to be settled is whether the connectivity between the above-mentioned networks and the cerebellum is affected in schizophrenia
It remains unclear to the changes of the cerebral connection with the cerebellum in schizophrenia, especially the cerebellar-cerebral dysconnectivity shared by the patients and the siblings
Summary
Can serve as potential endophenotypes for schizophrenia. An endophenotype is heritable and segregates with the disorder within families[12]. Several high-order networks have been revealed by resting-state fMRI13–18 They are: 1) the default-mode network (DMN), a well-known network consisting of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus and lateral posterior cortices; 2) dorsal attention network (DAN) including the frontal eye fields, intraparietal sulcus/superior parietal lobule, and extrastriate visual regions; 3) executive control network (ECN) comprising of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – parietal regions; and 4) salience network (SN), which includes the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and inferior frontal cortex/anterior insular cortex. We explored the cerebellar-cerebral connectivity in a relatively large sample of first-episode, drug-naive schizophrenia patients and unaffected siblings. The aim of this study was to examine the cerebellar-cerebral connectivity shared by the patients and the siblings, which could be used as potential endophenotypes for schizophrenia. We examined the correlations between abnormal cerebellar-cerebral connectivity and clinical variables (i.e. symptom severity) in the patients
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