Aberrant Functional Connectivity Research Articles

Structural and Functional Characteristics of the Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders and Their Associations with Onset Age

Background: the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is one of the latest brain structures to mature during the ontogeny, and its structural and functional abnormalities play an important role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. As schizophrenia spectrum disorders usually start before the complete brain maturation and their earlier onset is coupled with worse prognosis, we suggested that earlier illness onset is related to more pronounced aberrations of the DLPFC. The aim of study was to analyze the associations of the onset age of schizophrenia spectrum disorders with structural and functional characteristics of the DLPFC that differentiated patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders from healthy controls. Patients and methods: male patients with a diagnosis of schizophrenia spectrum disorders (n = 82) and healthy controls (n = 86) underwent structural MRI and functional resting-state fMRI. Cortical thickness and whole-brain functional connectivity of the DLPFC as well as local coherence and amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations of haemodynamic signal in the DLPFC were analyzed. Results: patients demonstrated a decreased gray matter thickness in the DLPFC bilaterally along with aberrant (predominantly decreased) functional connectivity of the DLPFC with other brain structures in each hemisphere. These measures were not associated with the age of illness onset. Conclusions: structural and functional abnormalities revealed in this study coincide with conventional view on the DLPFC as one of the key regions in schizophrenia spectrum disorders pathogenesis, however, these aberrations were not related to the age of psychosis onset. Possible interpretations of our results and limitations of the study are discussed in the article.

Aberrant cerebral blood flow and functional connectivity in patients with vestibular migraine: a resting-state ASL and fMRI study

BackgroundPrior neuroimaging studies on vestibular migraine (VM) have extensively certified the functional and structural alterations in multiple brain regions and networks. However, few studies have assessed the cerebral blood flow (CBF) in VM patients using arterial spin labeling (ASL). The present study aimed to investigate CBF and functional connectivity (FC) alterations in VM patients during interictal periods.MethodsWe evaluated 52 VM patients and 46 healthy controls (HC) who received resting-state pseudo-continuous ASL and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Comparisons of voxel-based CBF and seed-based FC were performed between the two groups. Brain regions showed significant group differences in CBF analyses were chosen as seeds in FC analyses. Additionally, the associations between abnormal imaging results and clinical features were explored.ResultsCompared with HC, VM patients showed higher normalized CBF in the right precentral gyrus (PreCG), left postcentral gyrus (PostCG), left superior frontal gyrus and bilateral insular (p < 0.05, FDR corrected). Furthermore, VM patients exhibited increased FC between the right PreCG and areas of the left PostCG, left cuneus and right lingual gyrus (p < 0.05, FDR corrected). In addition, we observed decreased FC between the left insular and regions of the left thalamus and right anterior cingulate cortex, as well as increased FC between the left insular and right fusiform gyrus in VM patients (p < 0.05, FDR corrected). Moreover, these variations in brain perfusion and FC were significantly correlated with multiple clinical features including frequency of migraine symptoms, frequency of vestibular symptoms and disease duration of VM (all p < 0.05).ConclusionsPatients with VM during interictal period showed hyperperfusion and abnormal resting-state FC in brain regions potentially contributed to disrupted multi-sensory and autonomic processing, as well as impaired ocular motor control, pain modulation and emotional regulation. Our study provided novel insights into the complex neuropathology of VM from a CBF perspective.

Aberrant functional connectivity of the salience network in adult patients with tic disorders: a resting-state fMRI study.

Tic disorders (TD) are characterized by the presence of motor and/or vocal tics. Common neurophysiological frameworks suggest dysregulations of the cortico-striatal-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) brain circuit that controls movement execution. Besides the common tics, there are other "non-tic" symptoms that are primarily related to sensory perception, sensorimotor integration, attention, and social cognition. The existence of these symptoms, the sensory tic triggers and the modifying effect of attention and cognitive control mechanisms on tics may indicate the salience network's involvement in the neurophysiology of TD. Resting-state functional MRI measurements were performed in 26 participants with TD and 25 healthy controls. The group differences in resting-state functional connectivity patterns were measured based on seed-to-voxel connectivity analyses. Compared to healthy controls, patients with TD exhibited altered connectivity between the core regions of the salience network (insula, ACC and TPJ) and sensory, associative, and motor-related cortices. Furthermore, connectivity changes were observed in relation to the severity of tics in the TD group. The salience network, particularly the insula, is likely to be an important site of dysregulation in TD. Our results provide evidence for large-scale neural deviations in TD beyond the CSTC pathologies. These findings may be relevant for developing treatment targets.Significance statement Tic disorders (TD) are associated with a variety of symptoms beyond typical motor and vocal tics that affect sensory perception, attention, and social cognition. The presence of such non-tic symptoms suggests the potential involvement of the salience network in the pathophysiology of TD. While previous studies have predominantly focused on the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuitry, which is known to underlie tic generation and expression, we conducted resting-state fMRI to investigate the functional connectivity of the salience network in TD. Notably, we observed impaired connectivity of the salience network with relations to the tic symptom severity. Our research provided important evidence that the pathophysiology of TD involves the salience network, which is highly relevant for developing treatment strategies.

Functional connectivity alterations in the thalamus among patients with bronchial asthma.

Bronchial Asthma (BA) is a common chronic respiratory disease worldwide. Earlier research has demonstrated abnormal functional connectivity (FC) in multiple cognition-related cortices in asthma patients. The thalamus (Thal) serves as a relay center for transmitting sensory signals, yet the modifications in the thalamic FC among individuals with asthma remain uncertain. This research employed the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) approach to explore alterations in thalamic functional connectivity among individuals with BA. After excluding participants who did not meet the criteria, this study finally included 31 patients with BA, with a gender distribution of 16 males and 15 females. Subsequently, we recruited 31 healthy control participants (HC) matched for age, gender, and educational background. All participants underwent the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) and the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD) assessment. Following this, both groups underwent head magnetic resonance imaging scans, and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) data was collected. Based on the AAL (Automated Anatomical Labeling) template, the bilateral thalamic regions were used as seed points (ROI) for subsequent rsFC research. Pearson correlation analysis was used to explore the relationship between thalamic functional connectivity and neuropsychological scales in both groups. After controlling for potential confounding factors such as age, gender, intelligence, and emotional level, a two-sample t-test was further used to explore differences in thalamic functional connectivity between the two groups of participants. Compared to the HC group, the BA group demonstrated heightened functional connectivity (FC) between the left thalamus and the left cerebellar posterior lobe (CPL), left postcentral gyrus (PCG), and right superior frontal gyrus (SFG). Concurrently, there was a decrease in FC with both the Lentiform Nucleus (LN) and the left corpus callosum (CC). Performing FC analysis with the right thalamus as the Region of Interest (ROI) revealed an increase in FC between the right thalamus and the right SFG as well as the left CPL. Conversely, a decrease in FC was observed between the right thalamus and the right LN as well as the left CC. In our study, we have verified the presence of aberrant FC patterns in the thalamus of BA patients. When compared to HCs, BA patients exhibit aberrant alterations in FC between the thalamus and various brain areas connected to vision, hearing, emotional regulation, cognitive control, somatic sensations, and wakefulness. This provides further confirmation of the substantial role played by the thalamus in the advancement of BA.

Atypical functional connectivity between the amygdala and visual, salience regions in infants with genetic liability for autism.

The amygdala undergoes a period of overgrowth in the first year of life, resulting in enlarged volume by 12months in infants later diagnosed with ASD. The overgrowth of the amygdala may have functional consequences during infancy. We investigated whether amygdala connectivity differs in 12-month-olds at high likelihood (HL) for ASD (defined by having an older sibling with autism), compared to those at low likelihood (LL). We examined seed-based connectivity of left and right amygdalae, hypothesizing that the HL and LL groups would differ in amygdala connectivity, especially with the visual cortex, based on our prior reports demonstrating that components of visual circuitry develop atypically and are linked to genetic liability for autism. We found that HL infants exhibited weaker connectivity between the right amygdala and the left visual cortex, as well as between the left amygdala and the right anterior cingulate, with evidence that these patterns occur in distinct subgroups of the HL sample. Amygdala connectivity strength with the visual cortex was related to motor and communication abilities among HL infants. Findings indicate that aberrant functional connectivity between the amygdala and visual regions is apparent in infants with genetic liability for ASD and may have implications for early differences in adaptive behaviors.

Aberrant cortical activity, functional connectivity, and neural assembly architecture after photothrombotic stroke in mice.

Despite substantial progress in mapping the trajectory of network plasticity resulting from focal ischemic stroke, the extent and nature of changes in neuronal excitability and activity within the peri-infarct cortex of mice remains poorly defined. Most of the available data have been acquired from anesthetized animals, acute tissue slices, or infer changes in excitability from immunoassays on extracted tissue, and thus may not reflect cortical activity dynamics in the intact cortex of an awake animal. Here, in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in awake, behaving mice was used to longitudinally track cortical activity, network functional connectivity, and neural assembly architecture for 2 months following photothrombotic stroke targeting the forelimb somatosensory cortex. Sensorimotor recovery was tracked over the weeks following stroke, allowing us to relate network changes to behavior. Our data revealed spatially restricted but long-lasting alterations in somatosensory neural network function and connectivity. Specifically, we demonstrate significant and long-lasting disruptions in neural assembly architecture concurrent with a deficit in functional connectivity between individual neurons. Reductions in neuronal spiking in peri-infarct cortex were transient but predictive of impairment in skilled locomotion measured in the tapered beam task. Notably, altered neural networks were highly localized, with assembly architecture and neural connectivity relatively unaltered a short distance from the peri-infarct cortex, even in regions within 'remapped' forelimb functional representations identified using mesoscale imaging with anaesthetized preparations 8 weeks after stroke. Thus, using longitudinal two-photon microscopy in awake animals, these data show a complex spatiotemporal relationship between peri-infarct neuronal network function and behavioral recovery. Moreover, the data highlight an apparent disconnect between dramatic functional remapping identified using strong sensory stimulation in anaesthetized mice compared to more subtle and spatially restricted changes in individual neuron and local network function in awake mice during stroke recovery.

Aberrant cortical activity, functional connectivity, and neural assembly architecture after photothrombotic stroke in mice

Despite substantial progress in mapping the trajectory of network plasticity resulting from focal ischemic stroke, the extent and nature of changes in neuronal excitability and activity within the peri-infarct cortex of mice remains poorly defined. Most of the available data have been acquired from anesthetized animals, acute tissue slices, or infer changes in excitability from immunoassays on extracted tissue, and thus may not reflect cortical activity dynamics in the intact cortex of an awake animal. Here, in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in awake, behaving mice was used to longitudinally track cortical activity, network functional connectivity, and neural assembly architecture for 2 months following photothrombotic stroke targeting the forelimb somatosensory cortex. Sensorimotor recovery was tracked over the weeks following stroke, allowing us to relate network changes to behavior. Our data revealed spatially restricted but long-lasting alterations in somatosensory neural network function and connectivity. Specifically, we demonstrate significant and long-lasting disruptions in neural assembly architecture concurrent with a deficit in functional connectivity between individual neurons. Reductions in neuronal spiking in peri-infarct cortex were transient but predictive of impairment in skilled locomotion measured in the tapered beam task. Notably, altered neural networks were highly localized, with assembly architecture and neural connectivity relatively unaltered a short distance from the peri-infarct cortex, even in regions within ‘remapped’ forelimb functional representations identified using mesoscale imaging with anaesthetized preparations 8 weeks after stroke. Thus, using longitudinal two-photon microscopy in awake animals, these data show a complex spatiotemporal relationship between peri-infarct neuronal network function and behavioral recovery. Moreover, the data highlight an apparent disconnect between dramatic functional remapping identified using strong sensory stimulation in anaesthetized mice compared to more subtle and spatially restricted changes in individual neuron and local network function in awake mice during stroke recovery.

Altered functional connectivity of cerebellar subregions in male patients with obstructive sleep apnea: A resting-state fMRI study.

Previous studies have demonstrated impaired cerebellar function in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is associated with impaired cognition. However, the effects of OSA on resting-state functional connectivity (FC) in the cerebellum has not been determined. The purpose of this study was to investigate resting-state FC of the cerebellar subregions and its relevance to clinical symptoms in patients with OSA. Sixty-eight patients with OSA and seventy-two healthy controls (HCs) were included in the study. Eight subregions of the cerebellum were selected as regions of interest, and the FC values were calculated for each subregion with other voxels. A correlation analysis was performed to examine the relationship between clinical and cognitive data. Patients with OSA showed higher FC in specific regions, including the right lobule VI with the right posterior middle temporal gyrus and right angular gyrus, the right Crus I with the bilateral precuneus/left superior parietal lobule, and the right Crus II with the precuneus/right posterior cingulate cortex. Furthermore, the oxygen depletion index was negatively correlated with aberrant FC between the right Crus II and the bilateral precuneus / right posterior cingulate cortex in OSA patients (p = 0.004). The cerebellum is functionally lateralized and closely linked to the posterior default mode network. Higher FC is related to cognition, emotion, language, and sleep in OSA. Abnormal FC may offer new neuroimaging evidence and insights for a deeper comprehension of OSA-related alterations.

Aberrant functional connectivity associated with drug response in patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy.

To analyze the local functional activity and connectivity features of the brain associated with drug response inpatients newly diagnosed with epilepsy (NDE) who are naïve to anti-seizure medication (ASM). Recruited patients, underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging at baseline, and were assigned to the well-controlled (WC, n = 28) or uncontrolled (UC, n = 11) groups based on their response to ASM. Healthy participants were included in the control group (HC, n = 29). The amplitudes of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and fractional ALFF (fALFF) were used to measure local functional activity, and voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) were used to evaluate the connecting intensity of the brain areas. Compared to the HC and WC groups, the UC group had higher ALFF values in the left posterior central gyrus (PoCG.L) and left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG.L) and higher DC in the bilateral PoCG (Gaussian random field correction, voxel-level P < 0.001, and cluster-level P < 0.05). Both PoCG and ITG.L in the UC group showed stronger FC with multiple brain regions, mainly located in the occipital and temporal lobes, compared to the HC or WC group, while the WC group showed decreased or similar FC compared to the HC group. Excessive enhancement of brain functional activity or connecting intensity in ASM-naïve patients with NDE may be associated with a higher risk of poor drug response.

Aberrant Brain Triple-Network Effective Connectivity Patterns in Type2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Aberrant brain functional connectivity network is thought to be related to cognitive impairment in patients with type2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This study aims to investigate the triple-network effective connectivity patterns in patients with T2DM within and between the default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and executive control network (ECN) and their associations with cognitive declines. In total, 92 patients with T2DM and 98 matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Spectral dynamic causal modeling (spDCM) was used for effective connectivity analysis within the triple network. The posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and anterior insula (AINS) were selected as the regions of interest. Group comparisons were performed for effective connectivity calculated using the fully connected model, and the relationships between effective connectivity alterations and cognitive impairment as well as clinical parameters were detected. Compared to HCs, patients with T2DM exhibited increased or decreased effective connectivity patterns within the triple network. Furthermore, diabetes duration was significantly negatively correlated with increased effective connectivity from the r-LPFC to the mPFC, while body mass index (BMI) was significantly positively correlated with increased effective connectivity from the l-LPFC to the l-AINS (r = - 0.353, p = 0.001; r = 0.377, p = 0.004). These results indicate abnormal effective connectivity patterns within the triple network model in patients with T2DM and provide new insight into the neurological mechanisms of T2DM and related cognitive dysfunction.

Abnormal functional connectivity of the reward circuit associated with early satiety in patients with postprandial distress syndrome

Postprandial distress syndrome (PDS) is the most common functional dyspepsia (FD) subtype. Early satiety is one of the cardinal symptoms of the PDS subtype in FD patients. The heterogeneity of symptoms in FD patients hampered therapy for patients based on specific symptoms, necessitating a symptom-based understanding of the pathophysiology of FD. To investigate the correlation between reward circuit and symptom severity of PDS patients, seed (Nucleus accumbens, NAc, a key node in the reward circuit) based resting-state functional connectivity (FC) was applied in the neuroimaging data analysis. The results demonstrated that the patients with PDS manifested strengthened FC between NAc and the caudate, putamen, pallidum, amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and insula. Moreover, the FC between NAc and ACC, insula, thalamus, and hippocampus exhibited significant positive associations with symptom severity. More importantly, the strengthened FC between NAc and the ACC, insula, amygdala, and hippocampus were found associated with the early satiety symptom of patients with PDS. This study indicated that the altered FC of reward circuit regions may play a role in the pathophysiology of patients with PDS, and some of the aberrant NAc-based FC within the reward circuit were more related to the early satiety of patients with PDS. These findings improve our symptom-based understanding of the central pathophysiology of FD, lay the groundwork for an objective diagnosis of FD, and shed light on the precise prescription for treating FD based on symptoms.

Tinnitus classification based on resting-state functional connectivity using a convolutional neural network architecture

ObjectivesMany studies have investigated aberrant functional connectivity (FC) using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) in subjective tinnitus patients. However, no studies have verified the efficacy of resting-state FC as a diagnostic imaging marker. We established a convolutional neural network (CNN) model based on rs-fMRI FC to distinguish tinnitus patients from healthy controls, providing guidance and fast diagnostic tools for the clinical diagnosis of subjective tinnitus. MethodsA CNN architecture was trained on rs-fMRI data from 100 tinnitus patients and 100 healthy controls using an asymmetric convolutional layer. Additionally, a traditional machine learning model and a transfer learning model were included for comparison with the CNN, and each of the three models was tested on three different brain atlases. ResultsOf the three models, the CNN model outperformed the other two models with the highest area under the curve, especially on the Dos_160 atlas (AUC = 0.944). Meanwhile, the model with the best classification performance highlights the crucial role of the default mode network, salience network, and sensorimotor network in distinguishing between normal controls and patients with subjective tinnitus. ConclusionOur CNN model could appropriately tackle the diagnosis of tinnitus patients using rs-fMRI and confirmed the diagnostic value of FC as measured by rs-fMRI.

Aberrant dynamic functional connectivity of thalamocortical circuitry in major depressive disorder.

Thalamocortical circuitry has a substantial impact on emotion and cognition. Previous studies have demonstrated alterations in thalamocortical functional connectivity (FC), characterized by region-dependent hypo- or hyper-connectivity, among individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the dynamical reconfiguration of the thalamocortical system over time and potential abnormalities in dynamic thalamocortical connectivity associated with MDD remain unclear. Hence, we analyzed dynamic FC (dFC) between ten thalamic subregions and seven cortical subnetworks from resting-state functional magnetic resonance images of 48 patients with MDD and 57 healthy controls (HCs) to investigate time-varying changes in thalamocortical FC in patients with MDD. Moreover, dynamic laterality analysis was conducted to examine the changes in functional lateralization of the thalamocortical system over time. Correlations between the dynamic measures of thalamocortical FC and clinical assessment were also calculated. We identified four dynamic states of thalamocortical circuitry wherein patients with MDD exhibited decreased fractional time and reduced transitions within a negative connectivity state that showed strong correlations with primary cortical networks, compared with the HCs. In addition, MDD patients also exhibited increased fluctuations in functional laterality in the thalamocortical system across the scan duration. The thalamo-subnetwork analysis unveiled abnormal dFC variability involving higher-order cortical networks in the MDD cohort. Significant correlations were found between increased dFC variability with dorsal attention and default mode networks and the severity of symptoms. Our study comprehensively investigated the pattern of alteration of the thalamocortical dFC in MDD patients. The heterogeneous alterations of dFC between the thalamus and both primary and higher-order cortical networks may help characterize the deficits of sensory and cognitive processing in MDD.

Uncovering brain functional connectivity disruption patterns of lung cancer-related pain.

Pain is a pervasive symptom in lung cancer patients during the onset of the disease. This study aims to investigate the connectivity disruption patterns of the whole-brain functional network in lung cancer patients with cancer pain (CP+). We constructed individual whole-brain, region of interest (ROI)-level functional connectivity (FC) networks for 50 CP+ patients, 34 lung cancer patients without pain-related complaints (CP-), and 31 matched healthy controls (HC). Then, a ROI-based FC analysis was used to determine the disruptions of FC among the three groups. The relationships between aberrant FCs and clinical parameters were also characterized. The ROI-based FC analysis demonstrated that hypo-connectivity was present both in CP+ and CP- patients compared to HC, which were particularly clustered in the somatomotor and ventral attention, frontoparietal control, and default mode modules. Notably, compared to CP- patients, CP+ patients had hyper-connectivity in several brain regions mainly distributed in the somatomotor and visual modules, suggesting these abnormal FC patterns may be significant for cancer pain. Moreover, CP+ patients also showed increased intramodular and intermodular connectivity strength of the functional network, which could be replicated in cancer stage IV and lung adenocarcinoma. Finally, abnormal FCs within the prefrontal cortex and somatomotor cortex were positively correlated with pain intensity and pain duration, respectively. These findings suggested that lung cancer patients with cancer pain had disrupted connectivity in the intrinsic brain functional network, which may be the underlying neuroimaging mechanisms.

Regional GABA levels modulate abnormal resting-state network functional connectivity and cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis.

More evidence shows that changes in functional connectivity with regard to brain networks and neurometabolite levels correlated to cognitive impairment in multiple sclerosis. However, the neurological basis underlying the relationship among neurometabolite levels, functional connectivity, and cognitive impairment remains unclear. For this purpose, we used a combination of magnetic resonance spectroscopy and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to study gamma-aminobutyric acid and glutamate concentrations in the posterior cingulate cortex, medial prefrontal cortex and left hippocampus, and inter-network functional connectivity in 29 relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients and 34 matched healthy controls. Neuropsychological tests were used to evaluate the cognitive function. We found that relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients demonstrated significantly reduced gamma-aminobutyric acid and glutamate concentrations and aberrant functional connectivity involving cognitive-related networks compared to healthy controls, and both alterations were associated with specific cognition decline. Moreover, mediation analyses indicated that decremented hippocampus gamma-aminobutyric acid levels in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients mediated the association between inter-network functional connectivity in various components of default mode network and verbal memory deficits. In summary, our findings shed new lights on the essential function of GABAergic system abnormalities in regulating network dysconnectivity and functional connectivity in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis patients, suggesting potential novel approach to treatment.

Aberrant interhemispheric structural and functional connectivity within whole brain in schizophrenia

ObjectiveSchizophrenia is a serious mental disorder whose etiology remains unclear. Although numerous studies have analyzed the abnormal gray matter functional activity and whole-brain anatomical changes in schizophrenia, fMRI signal fluctuations from white matter have usually been ignored and rarely reported in the literature. MethodsWe employed 45 schizophrenia subjects and 75 healthy controls (HCs) from a publicly available fMRI dataset. By combining the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) measure and fiber tracking method, we investigated the interhemispheric functional and structural connectivity within whole brain in schizophrenia. ResultsCompared to HCs, patients with schizophrenia exhibited significantly reduced VMHC in the bilateral middle occipital gyrus, precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus and corpus callosum. Fiber tracking results showed the changes in structural connectivity for the bilateral precentral gyrus, and the bilateral corpus callosum, and the fiber bundles connecting bilateral precentral gyrus and connecting the bilateral corpus callosum passed through the posterior midbody, isthmus and splenium of mid-sagittal corpus callosum, which closely related to the interhemispheric integration of visual and auditory information. More importantly, we observed a negative correlation between averaged VMHC values in the postcentral gyrus and SAPS scores, and a positive correlation between the fractional anisotropy of fiber bundle connecting the bilateral precentral gyrus and Matrix Reasoning scores in schizophrenia. ConclusionOur findings provide a novel perspective of white matter functional images on understanding abnormal interhemispheric visual and auditory information transfer in schizophrenia.

A whole-brain neuromark resting-state fMRI analysis of first-episode and early psychosis: Evidence of aberrant cortical-subcortical-cerebellar functional circuitry

Psychosis (including symptoms of delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized conduct/speech) is a main feature of schizophrenia and is frequently present in other major psychiatric illnesses. Studies in individuals with first-episode (FEP) and early psychosis (EP) have the potential to interpret aberrant connectivity associated with psychosis during a period with minimal influence from medication and other confounds. The current study uses a data-driven whole-brain approach to examine patterns of aberrant functional network connectivity (FNC) in a multi-site dataset comprising resting-state functional magnetic resonance images (rs-fMRI) from 117 individuals with FEP or EP and 130 individuals without a psychiatric disorder, as controls. Accounting for age, sex, race, head motion, and multiple imaging sites, differences in FNC were identified between psychosis and control participants in cortical (namely the inferior frontal gyrus, superior medial frontal gyrus, postcentral gyrus, supplementary motor area, posterior cingulate cortex, and superior and middle temporal gyri), subcortical (the caudate, thalamus, subthalamus, and hippocampus), and cerebellar regions. The prominent pattern of reduced cerebellar connectivity in psychosis is especially noteworthy, as most studies focus on cortical and subcortical regions, neglecting the cerebellum. The dysconnectivity reported here may indicate disruptions in cortical-subcortical-cerebellar circuitry involved in rudimentary cognitive functions which may serve as reliable correlates of psychosis.

Aberrant Functional Connectivity in Core–Periphery Structure Based on WSBM in ADHD

Objective: Brain network studies have revealed that the community structure of ADHD is altered. However, these studies have only focused on modular community structure, ignoring the core–periphery community structure. Method: This paper employed the weighted stochastic block model to divide the functional connectivity (FC) into 10 communities. And we adopted core score to define the core–periphery structure of FC. Finally, connectivity strength (CS) and disruption index (DI) were used to evaluate the changes of core–periphery structure in ADHD. Results: The core community of visual network showed reduced CS and a positive value of DI, while the CS of periphery community was enhanced. In addition, the interaction between core communities (involving the sensorimotor and visual network) and periphery community of attention network showed increased CS and a negative valve of DI. Conclusion: Anomalies in core–periphery community structure provide a new perspective for understanding the community structure of ADHD.

Transcriptional signatures of the whole-brain voxel-wise resting-state functional network centrality alterations in schizophrenia

Neuroimaging studies have revealed that patients with schizophrenia exhibit disrupted resting-state functional connectivity. However, the inconsistent findings across these studies have hindered our comprehensive understanding of the functional connectivity changes associated with schizophrenia, and the molecular mechanisms associated with these alterations remain largely unclear. A quantitative meta-analysis was first conducted on 21 datasets, involving 1057 patients and 1186 healthy controls, to examine disrupted resting-state functional connectivity in schizophrenia, as measured by whole-brain voxel-wise functional network centrality (FNC). Subsequently, partial least squares regression analysis was employed to investigate the relationship between FNC changes and gene expression profiles obtained from the Allen Human Brain Atlas database. Finally, gene enrichment analysis was performed to unveil the biological significance of the altered FNC-related genes. Compared with healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia show consistently increased FNC in the right inferior parietal cortex extending to the supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus, bilateral medial prefrontal cortex, and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, while decreased FNC in the bilateral insula, bilateral postcentral gyrus, and right inferior temporal gyrus. Meta-regression analysis revealed that increased FNC in the right inferior parietal cortex was positively correlated with clinical score. In addition, these observed functional connectivity changes were found to be spatially associated with the brain-wide expression of specific genes, which were enriched in diverse biological pathways and cell types. These findings highlight the aberrant functional connectivity observed in schizophrenia and its potential molecular underpinnings, providing valuable insights into the neuropathology of dysconnectivity associated with this disorder.

Abnormal functional connectivity of the reward network is associated with social communication impairments in autism spectrum disorder: A large-scale multi-site resting-state fMRI study

BackgroundThe social motivation hypothesis proposes that the social deficits of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are related to reward system dysfunction. However, functional connectivity (FC) patterns of the reward network in ASD have not been systematically explored yet. MethodsThe reward network was defined as eight regions of interest (ROIs) per hemisphere, including the nucleus accumbens (NAc), caudate, putamen, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), amygdala, and insula. We computed both the ROI-wise resting-state FC and seed-based whole-brain FC in 298 ASD participants and 348 typically developing (TD) controls from the Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange I dataset. Two-sample t-tests were applied to obtain the aberrant FCs. Then, the association between aberrant FCs and clinical symptoms was assessed with Pearson's correlation or Spearman's correlation. In addition, Neurosynth Image Decoder was used to generate word clouds verifying the cognitive functions of the aberrant pathways. Furthermore, a three-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to examine the effects of gender, subtype and age on the atypical FCs. ResultsFor the within network analysis, the left ACC showed weaker FCs with both the right amygdala and left NAc in ASD compared with TD, which were negatively correlated with the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) total scores and Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS) total scores respectively. For the whole-brain analysis, weaker FC (i.e., FC between the left vmPFC and left calcarine gyrus, and between the right vmPFC and left precuneus) accompanied by stronger FC (i.e., FC between the left caudate and right insula) were exhibited in ASD relative to TD, which were positively associated with the SRS motivation scores. Additionally, we detected the main effect of age on FC between the left vmPFC and left calcarine gyrus, of subtype on FC between the right vmPFC and left precuneus, of age and age-by-gender interaction on FC between the left caudate and right insula. ConclusionsOur findings highlight the crucial role of abnormal FC patterns of the reward network in the core social deficits of ASD, which have the potential to reveal new biomarkers for ASD.