201
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Murray JD, Demirtaş M, Anticevic A. Biophysical Modeling of Large-Scale Brain Dynamics and Applications for Computational Psychiatry. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2018; 3:777-787. [PMID: 30093344 PMCID: PMC6537601 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2018.07.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2018] [Revised: 07/11/2018] [Accepted: 07/11/2018] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
Noninvasive neuroimaging has revolutionized the study of the organization of the human brain and how its structure and function are altered in psychiatric disorders. A critical explanatory gap lies in our mechanistic understanding of how systems-level neuroimaging biomarkers emerge from underlying synaptic-level perturbations associated with a disease state. We describe an emerging computational psychiatry approach leveraging biophysically based computational models of large-scale brain dynamics and their potential integration with clinical and pharmacological neuroimaging. In particular, we focus on neural circuit models, which describe how patterns of functional connectivity observed in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging emerge from neural dynamics shaped by inter-areal interactions through underlying structural connectivity defining long-range projections. We highlight the importance of local circuit physiological dynamics, in combination with structural connectivity, in shaping the emergent functional connectivity. Furthermore, heterogeneity of local circuit properties across brain areas, which impacts large-scale dynamics, may be critical for modeling whole-brain phenomena and alterations in psychiatric disorders and pharmacological manipulation. Finally, we discuss important directions for future model development and biophysical extensions, which will expand their utility to link clinical neuroimaging to neurobiological mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- John D Murray
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut.
| | - Murat Demirtaş
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
| | - Alan Anticevic
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut
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202
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Mennigen E, Fryer SL, Rashid B, Damaraju E, Du Y, Loewy RL, Stuart BK, Calhoun VD, Mathalon DH. Transient Patterns of Functional Dysconnectivity in Clinical High Risk and Early Illness Schizophrenia Individuals Compared with Healthy Controls. Brain Connect 2018; 9:60-76. [PMID: 29855202 DOI: 10.1089/brain.2018.0579] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Schizophrenia shows abnormal dynamic functional network connectivity (dFNC), but it is unclear whether these abnormalities are present early in the illness course or precede illness onset in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis. We examined dFNC from resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data in CHR (n = 53), early illness schizophrenia (ESZ; n = 58), and healthy control (HC; n = 70) individuals. We applied a sliding temporal window approach capturing five distinct dFNC states. In ESZ patients, the likelihood of transitioning from state 4, a state that exhibited greater cortical-subcortical hyperconnectivity and also lacked typically observed anticorrelation between the default mode network and other functional networks, to a hypoconnected state was increased compared with HC and CHR groups. Furthermore, we investigated the interaction of group and state on dFNC. Overall, HC individuals showed significant changes of connectivity between states that were absent or altered in ESZ patients and CHR individuals. Connectivity differences between groups were identified primarily in two out of the five states, in particular, between HC and ESZ groups. In summary, it appears that the interaction effect was mostly driven by (1) dynamic connectivity changes in HC that were abnormal in CHR and ESZ individuals and (2) the fact that dysconnectivity between groups was only present in some states. These findings underscore the likelihood that abnormalities are present not only in static FNC but also in dFNC, in individuals at CHR for schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eva Mennigen
- 1 The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, New Mexico.,2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
| | - Susanna L Fryer
- 3 Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, California.,4 Mental Health Service, San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, California
| | | | | | - Yuhui Du
- 1 The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, New Mexico.,5 School of Computer & Information Technology, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China
| | - Rachel L Loewy
- 3 Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, California
| | - Barbara K Stuart
- 3 Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, California
| | - Vince D Calhoun
- 1 The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, New Mexico.,2 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
| | - Daniel H Mathalon
- 3 Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, California.,4 Mental Health Service, San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, California
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203
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Cerebellar volume and cerebellocerebral structural covariance in schizophrenia: a multisite mega-analysis of 983 patients and 1349 healthy controls. Mol Psychiatry 2018; 23:1512-1520. [PMID: 28507318 DOI: 10.1038/mp.2017.106] [Citation(s) in RCA: 137] [Impact Index Per Article: 22.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/25/2016] [Revised: 02/20/2017] [Accepted: 04/04/2017] [Indexed: 12/24/2022]
Abstract
Although cerebellar involvement across a wide range of cognitive and neuropsychiatric phenotypes is increasingly being recognized, previous large-scale studies in schizophrenia (SZ) have primarily focused on supratentorial structures. Hence, the across-sample reproducibility, regional distribution, associations with cerebrocortical morphology and effect sizes of cerebellar relative to cerebral morphological differences in SZ are unknown. We addressed these questions in 983 patients with SZ spectrum disorders and 1349 healthy controls (HCs) from 14 international samples, using state-of-the-art image analysis pipelines optimized for both the cerebellum and the cerebrum. Results showed that total cerebellar grey matter volume was robustly reduced in SZ relative to HCs (Cohens's d=-0.35), with the strongest effects in cerebellar regions showing functional connectivity with frontoparietal cortices (d=-0.40). Effect sizes for cerebellar volumes were similar to the most consistently reported cerebral structural changes in SZ (e.g., hippocampus volume and frontotemporal cortical thickness), and were highly consistent across samples. Within groups, we further observed positive correlations between cerebellar volume and cerebral cortical thickness in frontotemporal regions (i.e., overlapping with areas that also showed reductions in SZ). This cerebellocerebral structural covariance was strongest in SZ, suggesting common underlying disease processes jointly affecting the cerebellum and the cerebrum. Finally, cerebellar volume reduction in SZ was highly consistent across the included age span (16-66 years) and present already in the youngest patients, a finding that is more consistent with neurodevelopmental than neurodegenerative etiology. Taken together, these novel findings establish the cerebellum as a key node in the distributed brain networks underlying SZ.
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204
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Kupferschmidt DA, Gordon JA. The dynamics of disordered dialogue: Prefrontal, hippocampal and thalamic miscommunication underlying working memory deficits in schizophrenia. Brain Neurosci Adv 2018; 2. [PMID: 31058245 PMCID: PMC6497416 DOI: 10.1177/2398212818771821] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
The prefrontal cortex is central to the orchestrated brain network communication that gives rise to working memory and other cognitive functions. Accordingly, working memory deficits in schizophrenia are increasingly thought to derive from prefrontal cortex dysfunction coupled with broader network disconnectivity. How the prefrontal cortex dynamically communicates with its distal network partners to support working memory and how this communication is disrupted in individuals with schizophrenia remain unclear. Here we review recent evidence that prefrontal cortex communication with the hippocampus and thalamus is essential for normal spatial working memory, and that miscommunication between these structures underlies spatial working memory deficits in schizophrenia. We focus on studies using normal rodents and rodent models designed to probe schizophrenia-related pathology to assess the dynamics of neural interaction between these brain regions. We also highlight recent preclinical work parsing roles for long-range prefrontal cortex connections with the hippocampus and thalamus in normal and disordered spatial working memory. Finally, we discuss how emerging rodent endophenotypes of hippocampal- and thalamo-prefrontal cortex dynamics in spatial working memory could translate into richer understanding of the neural bases of cognitive function and dysfunction in humans.
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Affiliation(s)
- David A Kupferschmidt
- Integrative Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Joshua A Gordon
- Integrative Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD, USA.,National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
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205
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Parnaudeau S, Bolkan SS, Kellendonk C. The Mediodorsal Thalamus: An Essential Partner of the Prefrontal Cortex for Cognition. Biol Psychiatry 2018; 83:648-656. [PMID: 29275841 PMCID: PMC5862748 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.11.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 162] [Impact Index Per Article: 27.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/23/2017] [Revised: 11/06/2017] [Accepted: 11/06/2017] [Indexed: 01/17/2023]
Abstract
Deficits in cognition are a core feature of many psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, where the severity of such deficits is a strong predictor of long-term outcome. Impairment in cognitive domains such as working memory and behavioral flexibility has typically been associated with prefrontal cortex (PFC) dysfunction. However, there is increasing evidence that the PFC cannot be dissociated from its main thalamic counterpart, the mediodorsal thalamus (MD). Since the causal relationships between MD-PFC abnormalities and cognitive impairment, as well as the neuronal mechanisms underlying them, are difficult to address in humans, animal models have been employed for mechanistic insight. In this review, we discuss anatomical, behavioral, and electrophysiological findings from animal studies that provide a new understanding on how MD-PFC circuits support higher-order cognitive function. We argue that the MD may be required for amplifying and sustaining cortical representations under different behavioral conditions. These findings advance a new framework for the broader involvement of distributed thalamo-frontal circuits in cognition and point to the MD as a potential therapeutic target for improving cognitive deficits in schizophrenia and other disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sébastien Parnaudeau
- Sorbonne Universités, Université Pierre et Marie Curie Paris 06, Institut de Biologie Paris Seine UM119, Neuroscience Paris Seine, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique UMR8246, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U1130, Paris, France
| | - Scott S Bolkan
- Graduate Program in Neurobiology and Behavior, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York
| | - Christoph Kellendonk
- Departments of Pharmacology and Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York; Division of Molecular Therapeutics, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York.
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206
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Giraldo-Chica M, Rogers BP, Damon SM, Landman BA, Woodward ND. Prefrontal-Thalamic Anatomical Connectivity and Executive Cognitive Function in Schizophrenia. Biol Psychiatry 2018; 83:509-517. [PMID: 29113642 PMCID: PMC5809301 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.09.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 128] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2017] [Revised: 08/30/2017] [Accepted: 09/11/2017] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Executive cognitive functions, including working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibition, are impaired in schizophrenia. Executive functions rely on coordinated information processing between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and thalamus, particularly the mediodorsal nucleus. This raises the possibility that anatomical connectivity between the PFC and mediodorsal thalamus may be 1) reduced in schizophrenia and 2) related to deficits in executive function. The current investigation tested these hypotheses. METHODS Forty-five healthy subjects and 62 patients with a schizophrenia spectrum disorder completed a battery of tests of executive function and underwent diffusion-weighted imaging. Probabilistic tractography was used to quantify anatomical connectivity between six cortical regions, including PFC, and the thalamus. Thalamocortical anatomical connectivity was compared between healthy subjects and patients with schizophrenia using region-of-interest and voxelwise approaches, and the association between PFC-thalamic anatomical connectivity and severity of executive function impairment was examined in patients. RESULTS Anatomical connectivity between the thalamus and PFC was reduced in schizophrenia. Voxelwise analysis localized the reduction to areas of the mediodorsal thalamus connected to lateral PFC. Reduced PFC-thalamic connectivity in schizophrenia correlated with impaired working memory but not cognitive flexibility and inhibition. In contrast to reduced PFC-thalamic connectivity, thalamic connectivity with somatosensory and occipital cortices was increased in schizophrenia. CONCLUSIONS The results are consistent with models implicating disrupted PFC-thalamic connectivity in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia and mechanisms of cognitive impairment. PFC-thalamic anatomical connectivity may be an important target for procognitive interventions. Further work is needed to determine the implications of increased thalamic connectivity with sensory cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Monica Giraldo-Chica
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN
| | - Baxter P. Rogers
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Nashville, TN
| | | | - Bennett A. Landman
- Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science, Nashville, TN,Vanderbilt University School of Engineering, Nashville, TN
| | - Neil D. Woodward
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN
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207
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Wolthusen RPF, Coombs G, Boeke EA, Ehrlich S, DeCross SN, Nasr S, Holt DJ. Correlation Between Levels of Delusional Beliefs and Perfusion of the Hippocampus and an Associated Network in a Non-Help-Seeking Population. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2018. [PMID: 29529413 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.06.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Delusions are a defining and common symptom of psychotic disorders. Recent evidence suggests that subclinical and clinical delusions may represent distinct stages on a phenomenological and biological continuum. However, few studies have tested whether subclinical psychotic experiences are associated with neural changes that are similar to those observed in clinical psychosis. For example, it is unclear if overactivity of the hippocampus, a replicated finding of neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia, is also present in individuals with subclinical psychotic symptoms. METHODS To investigate this question, structural and pulsed arterial spin labeling scans were collected in 77 adult participants with no psychiatric history. An anatomical region of interest approach was used to extract resting perfusion of the hippocampus, and 15 other regions, from each individual. A self-report measure of delusional ideation was collected on the day of scanning. RESULTS The level of delusional thinking (number of beliefs [r = .27, p = .02]), as well as the associated level of distress (r = .29, p = .02), was significantly correlated with hippocampal perfusion (averaged over right and left hemispheres). The correlations remained significant after controlling for age, hippocampal volume, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and image signal-to-noise ratio, and they were confirmed in a voxelwise regression analysis. The same association was observed in the thalamus and parahippocampal, lateral temporal, and cingulate cortices. CONCLUSIONS Similar to patients with schizophrenia, non-help-seeking individuals show elevated perfusion of a network of limbic regions in association with delusional beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rick P F Wolthusen
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, Massachusetts; Division of Psychological and Social Medicine and Developmental Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus of the Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Garth Coombs
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
| | - Emily A Boeke
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York
| | - Stefan Ehrlich
- Division of Psychological and Social Medicine and Developmental Neurosciences, Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus of the Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
| | - Stephanie N DeCross
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, Massachusetts
| | - Shahin Nasr
- Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, Massachusetts
| | - Daphne J Holt
- Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts; Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Charlestown, Massachusetts.
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208
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Müller F, Dolder PC, Schmidt A, Liechti ME, Borgwardt S. Altered network hub connectivity after acute LSD administration. Neuroimage Clin 2018; 18:694-701. [PMID: 29560311 PMCID: PMC5857492 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2018.03.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 87] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2017] [Revised: 01/15/2018] [Accepted: 03/06/2018] [Indexed: 12/16/2022]
Abstract
LSD is an ambiguous substance, said to mimic psychosis and to improve mental health in people suffering from anxiety and depression. Little is known about the neuronal correlates of altered states of consciousness induced by this substance. Limited previous studies indicated profound changes in functional connectivity of resting state networks after the administration of LSD. The current investigation attempts to replicate and extend those findings in an independent sample. In a double-blind, randomized, cross-over study, 100 μg LSD and placebo were orally administered to 20 healthy participants. Resting state brain activity was assessed by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Within-network and between-network connectivity measures of ten established resting state networks were compared between drug conditions. Complementary analysis were conducted using resting state networks as sources in seed-to-voxel analyses. Acute LSD administration significantly decreased functional connectivity within visual, sensorimotor and auditory networks and the default mode network. While between-network connectivity was widely increased and all investigated networks were affected to some extent, seed-to-voxel analyses consistently indicated increased connectivity between networks and subcortical (thalamus, striatum) and cortical (precuneus, anterior cingulate cortex) hub structures. These latter observations are consistent with findings on the importance of hubs in psychopathological states, especially in psychosis, and could underlay therapeutic effects of hallucinogens as proposed by a recent model.
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Affiliation(s)
- Felix Müller
- University of Basel, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Basel 4012, Switzerland
| | - Patrick C Dolder
- University of Basel, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital Basel, Basel 4031, Switzerland
| | - André Schmidt
- University of Basel, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Basel 4012, Switzerland
| | - Matthias E Liechti
- University of Basel, Division of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology, Department of Biomedicine and Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital Basel, Basel 4031, Switzerland
| | - Stefan Borgwardt
- University of Basel, Department of Psychiatry (UPK), Basel 4012, Switzerland.
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209
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Penner J, Osuch EA, Schaefer B, Théberge J, Neufeld RWJ, Menon RS, Rajakumar N, Bourne JA, Williamson PC. Higher order thalamic nuclei resting network connectivity in early schizophrenia and major depressive disorder. Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging 2018; 272:7-16. [PMID: 29247717 DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2017.12.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 20] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2017] [Revised: 12/05/2017] [Accepted: 12/06/2017] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
The pulvinar and the mediodorsal (MDN) nuclei of the thalamus are higher order nuclei which have been implicated in directed effort and corollary discharge systems. We used seed-based resting fMRI to examine functional connectivity to bilateral pulvinar and MDN in 24 schizophrenic patients (SZ), 24 major depressive disorder patients (MDD), and 24 age-matched healthy controls. SZ had less connectivity than controls between the left pulvinar and precuneus, left ventral-lateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and superior and medial-frontal regions, between the right pulvinar and right frontal pole, and greater connectivity between the right MDN and left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). SZ had less connectivity than MDD between the left pulvinar and ventral anterior cingulate (vACC), left vlPFC, anterior insula, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), and right hippocampus, between the right pulvinar and right PCC, and between the right MDN and right dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC). This is the first study to measure the functional connectivity to the higher order nuclei of the thalamus in both SZ and MDD. We observed less connectivity in SZ than MDD between pulvinar and emotional encoding regions, a directed effort region, and a region involved in representation and salience, and between MDN and a directed effort region.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jacob Penner
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Imaging Division, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; First Episode Mood & Anxiety Program (FEMAP), London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada.
| | - Elizabeth A Osuch
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; First Episode Mood & Anxiety Program (FEMAP), London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Betsy Schaefer
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Jean Théberge
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Imaging Division, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Richard W J Neufeld
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Neuroscience Program, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Ravi S Menon
- Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Centre for Functional and Metabolic Mapping, Robarts Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada; Imaging Division, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - Nagalingam Rajakumar
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
| | - James A Bourne
- Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, Monash University, Clayton, Australia
| | - Peter C Williamson
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; Imaging Division, Lawson Health Research Institute, London, Ontario, Canada
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210
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Roles of Prefrontal Cortex and Mediodorsal Thalamus in Task Engagement and Behavioral Flexibility. J Neurosci 2018; 38:2569-2578. [PMID: 29437889 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1728-17.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 50] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2017] [Revised: 01/30/2018] [Accepted: 02/02/2018] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Behavioral tasks involving auditory cues activate inhibitory neurons within auditory cortex, leading to a reduction in the amplitude of auditory evoked response potentials (ERPs). One hypothesis is that this process, termed "task engagement," may enable context-dependent behaviors. Here we set out to determine (1) whether the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a role in task engagement and (2) how task engagement relates to the context-dependent processing of auditory cues in male and female mice performing a decision-making task that can be guided by either auditory or visual cues. We found that, in addition to auditory ERP suppression, task engagement is associated with increased mPFC activity and an increase in theta band (4-7 Hz) synchronization between the mPFC and auditory cortex. Optogenetically inhibiting the mPFC eliminates the task engagement-induced auditory ERP suppression, while also preventing mice from switching between auditory and visual cue-based rules. However, mPFC inhibition, which eliminates task engagement-induced auditory ERP suppression, did not prevent mice from making decisions based on auditory cues. Furthermore, a more specific manipulation, selective disruption of mPFC outputs to the mediodorsal (MD) thalamus, is sufficient to prevent switching between auditory and visual rules but does not affect auditory ERPs. Based on these findings, we conclude that (1) the mPFC contributes to both task engagement and behavioral flexibility; (2) mPFC-MD projections are important for behavioral flexibility but not task engagement; and (3) task engagement, evidenced by the suppression of cortical responses to sensory input, is not required for sensory cue-guided decision making.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT When rodents perform choice-selection tasks based on sensory cues, neural responses to these cues are modulated compared with task-free conditions. Here we demonstrate that this phenomenon depends on the prefrontal cortex and thus represents a form of "top-down" regulation. However, we also show that this phenomenon is not critical for task performance, as rodents can make decisions based on specific sensory cues even when the task-dependent modulation of responses to those cues is abolished. Furthermore, disrupting one specific set of prefrontal outputs impairs rule switching but not the task-dependent modulation of sensory responses. These results show that the prefrontal cortex comprises multiple circuits that mediate dissociable functions related to behavioral flexibility and sensory processing.
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211
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Ouhaz Z, Fleming H, Mitchell AS. Cognitive Functions and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Involving the Prefrontal Cortex and Mediodorsal Thalamus. Front Neurosci 2018; 12:33. [PMID: 29467603 PMCID: PMC5808198 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2018.00033] [Citation(s) in RCA: 88] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/13/2017] [Accepted: 01/15/2018] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus (MD) has been implicated in executive functions (such as planning, cognitive control, working memory, and decision-making) because of its significant interconnectivity with the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Yet, whilst the roles of the PFC have been extensively studied, how the MD contributes to these cognitive functions remains relatively unclear. Recently, causal evidence in monkeys has demonstrated that in everyday tasks involving rapid updating (e.g., while learning something new, making decisions, or planning the next move), the MD and frontal cortex are working in close partnership. Furthermore, researchers studying the MD in rodents have been able to probe the underlying mechanisms of this relationship to give greater insights into how the frontal cortex and MD might interact during the performance of these essential tasks. This review summarizes the circuitry and known neuromodulators of the MD, and considers the most recent behavioral, cognitive, and neurophysiological studies conducted in monkeys and rodents; in total, this evidence demonstrates that MD makes a critical contribution to cognitive functions. We propose that communication occurs between the MD and the frontal cortex in an ongoing, fluid manner during rapid cognitive operations, via the means of efference copies of messages passed through transthalamic routes; the conductance of these messages may be modulated by other brain structures interconnected to the MD. This is similar to the way in which other thalamic structures have been suggested to carry out forward modeling associated with rapid motor responding and visual processing. Given this, and the marked thalamic pathophysiology now identified in many neuropsychiatric disorders, we suggest that changes in the different subdivisions of the MD and their interconnections with the cortex could plausibly give rise to a number of the otherwise disparate symptoms (including changes to olfaction and cognitive functioning) that are associated with many different neuropsychiatric disorders. In particular, we will focus here on the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia and suggest testable hypotheses about how changes to MD-frontal cortex interactions may affect cognitive processes in this disorder.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zakaria Ouhaz
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Hugo Fleming
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
| | - Anna S Mitchell
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
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212
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Choi SH, Kyeong S, Cho KIK, Yun JY, Lee TY, Park HY, Kim SN, Kwon JS. Brain network characteristics separating individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis into normality or psychosis. Schizophr Res 2017; 190:107-114. [PMID: 28325573 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2017.03.028] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2016] [Revised: 03/09/2017] [Accepted: 03/10/2017] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
We aimed to separate individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR) state into subgroups according to neurobiological characteristics using structural and functional network constructs and examine their clinical characteristics. Structural diffusion tensor imaging and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging were performed in 61 healthy controls (HC), 57 individuals at CHR and 29 patients with schizophrenia (SZ). The main outcome was a likelihood ratio calculated from measures of structural and functional network efficiencies, coupling strength of structural and functional networks, and a disease-specific data analysis, resulting in the most probable classification of CHR into HC or SZ. The likelihood ratios revealed that 33 individuals at CHR were likely similar to HC (CHR-HC), and the remaining 24 CHR individuals were similar to SZ (CHR-SZ). The CHR subgroups were comparable to each other in demographic characteristics and clinical symptoms. However, the verbal and executive functions of CHR-HC were similar to those of HC, and those of CHR-SZ similar to SZ. Additionally, CHR-SZ was more responsive to treatment than CHR-HC during the follow-up period. By combining structural and functional data, we could detect the vulnerable population and provide an active intervention in the early phase of the CHR state.
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Affiliation(s)
- Soo-Hee Choi
- Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Republic of Korea; Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea; Institute of Human Behavioral Medicine, SNU-MRC, Republic of Korea
| | - Sunghyon Kyeong
- Severance Biomedical Science Institute, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea
| | - Kang Ik K Cho
- Institute of Human Behavioral Medicine, SNU-MRC, Republic of Korea; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Seoul National University College of Natural Sciences, Republic of Korea
| | - Je-Yeon Yun
- Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Republic of Korea
| | - Tae Young Lee
- Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea; Institute of Human Behavioral Medicine, SNU-MRC, Republic of Korea
| | - Hye Yoon Park
- Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Republic of Korea
| | - Sung Nyun Kim
- Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Republic of Korea
| | - Jun Soo Kwon
- Department of Neuropsychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Republic of Korea; Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Republic of Korea; Institute of Human Behavioral Medicine, SNU-MRC, Republic of Korea; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Seoul National University College of Natural Sciences, Republic of Korea.
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213
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Mikanmaa E, Grent-'t-Jong T, Hua L, Recasens M, Thune H, Uhlhaas PJ. Towards a neurodynamical understanding of the prodrome in schizophrenia. Neuroimage 2017; 190:144-153. [PMID: 29175199 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.11.026] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2017] [Revised: 10/23/2017] [Accepted: 11/15/2017] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
The identification of biomarkers for the early diagnosis of schizophrenia that could inform novel treatment developments is an important objective of current research. This paper will summarize recent work that has investigated changes in oscillatory activity and event-related potentials with Electro/Magnetoencephalography (EEG/MEG) in participants at high-risk for the development of schizophrenia, highlighting disruptions in sensory and cognitive operations prior to the onset of the syndrome. Changes in EEG/MEG-data are consistent with evidence for alterations in Glutamatergic and GABAergic neurotransmission as disclosed by Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and brain stimulation, indicating changes in Excitation/Inhibition balance parameters prior to the onset of psychosis. Together these data emphasize the importance of research into neuronal dynamics as a crucial approach to establish functional relationships between impairments in neural circuits and emerging psychopathology that together could be fundamental for early intervention and the identification of novel treatments for emerging psychosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emmi Mikanmaa
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | | | - Lingling Hua
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | - Marc Recasens
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | - Hanna Thune
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
| | - Peter J Uhlhaas
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK.
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214
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Wang L, Kong QM, Li K, Li XN, Zeng YW, Chen C, Qian Y, Feng SJ, Li JT, Su Y, Correll CU, Mitchell PB, Yan CG, Zhang DR, Si TM. Altered intrinsic functional brain architecture in female patients with bulimia nervosa. J Psychiatry Neurosci 2017; 42:414-423. [PMID: 28949286 PMCID: PMC5662463 DOI: 10.1503/jpn.160183] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/27/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Bulimia nervosa is a severe psychiatric syndrome with uncertain pathogenesis. Neural systems involved in sensorimotor and visual processing, reward and impulsive control may contribute to the binge eating and purging behaviours characterizing bulimia nervosa. However, little is known about the alterations of functional organization of whole brain networks in individuals with this disorder. METHODS We used resting-state functional MRI and graph theory to characterize functional brain networks of unmedicated women with bulimia nervosa and healthy women. RESULTS We included 44 unmedicated women with bulimia nervosa and 44 healthy women in our analyses. Women with bulimia nervosa showed increased clustering coefficient and path length compared with control women. The nodal strength in patients with the disorder was higher in the sensorimotor and visual regions as well as the precuneus, but lower in several subcortical regions, such as the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus and orbitofrontal cortex. Patients also showed hyperconnectivity primarily involving sensorimotor and unimodal visual association regions, but hypoconnectivity involving subcortical (striatum, thalamus), limbic (amygdala, hippocampus) and paralimbic (orbitofrontal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus) regions. The topological aberrations correlated significantly with scores of bulimia and drive for thinness and with body mass index. LIMITATIONS We reruited patients with only acute bulimia nervosa, so it is unclear whether the topological abnormalities comprise vulnerability markers for the disorder developing or the changes associated with illness state. CONCLUSION Our findings show altered intrinsic functional brain architecture, specifically abnormal global and local efficiency, as well as nodal- and network-level connectivity across sensorimotor, visual, subcortical and limbic systems in women with bulimia nervosa, suggesting that it is a disorder of dysfunctional integration among large-scale distributed brain regions. These abnormalities contribute to more comprehensive understanding of the neural mechanism underlying pathological eating and body perception in women with bulimia nervosa.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - Tian-Mei Si
- Correspondence to: T. Si, Clinical Psychopharmacology Division, Institute of Mental Health, Peking University, No. 51 Hua Yuan Bei Road, Hai Dian District 100191, Beijing, China; ; or C. Yan, CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 16 Lincui Road, Chaoyang District 100101, Beijing, China;
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215
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Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW Motor abnormalities are an intrinsic feature of psychosis. Neurological soft signs, Parkinsonism, dyskinesia, and other motor phenomena are frequently observed in subjects at clinical or genetic risk for psychosis as well as first-episode patients, chronic patients. Here, we review the most recent literature on motor assessments and pathophysiology in psychosis. RECENT FINDINGS Instrumental measures of fine motor performance, balance, spontaneous motor activity, and gesture indicated motor abnormalities in subjects at risk and across stages of schizophrenia. Motor phenomena are associated with distinct symptom dimensions and may indicate poor outcomes. Neuroimaging studies demonstrated altered neural maturation within critical motor networks in subjects at risk. Furthermore, specific categories of motor dysfunction were associated with distinct structural and functional alterations in the motor system in schizophrenia. Motor abnormalities provide a unique window into the pathobiology of psychosis and have the potential to guide screening, staging, and outcome prediction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Walther
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Murtenstrasse 21, 3008, Bern, Switzerland.
| | - Vijay A Mittal
- Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.,Department of Psychiatry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.,Department of Medical Social Sciences, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.,Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.,Institute for Developmental Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
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216
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Du Y, Fryer SL, Lin D, Sui J, Yu Q, Chen J, Stuart B, Loewy RL, Calhoun VD, Mathalon DH. Identifying functional network changing patterns in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis and patients with early illness schizophrenia: A group ICA study. Neuroimage Clin 2017; 17:335-346. [PMID: 29159045 PMCID: PMC5681342 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.10.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2017] [Revised: 09/13/2017] [Accepted: 10/18/2017] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Although individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis exhibit a psychosis-risk syndrome involving attenuated forms of the positive symptoms typical of schizophrenia (SZ), it remains unclear whether their resting-state brain intrinsic functional networks (INs) show attenuated or qualitatively distinct patterns of functional dysconnectivity relative to SZ patients. Based on resting-state functional magnetic imaging data from 70 healthy controls (HCs), 53 CHR individuals (among which 41 subjects were antipsychotic medication-naive), and 58 early illness SZ (ESZ) patients (among which 53 patients took antipsychotic medication) within five years of illness onset, we estimated subject-specific INs using a novel group information guided independent component analysis (GIG-ICA) and investigated group differences in INs. We found that when compared to HCs, both CHR and ESZ groups showed significant differences, primarily in default mode, salience, auditory-related, visuospatial, sensory-motor, and parietal INs. Our findings suggest that widespread INs were diversely impacted. More than 25% of voxels in the identified significant discriminative regions (obtained using all 19 possible changing patterns excepting the no-difference pattern) from six of the 15 interrogated INs exhibited monotonically decreasing Z-scores (in INs) from the HC to CHR to ESZ, and the related regions included the left lingual gyrus of two vision-related networks, the right postcentral cortex of the visuospatial network, the left thalamus region of the salience network, the left calcarine region of the fronto-occipital network and fronto-parieto-occipital network. Compared to HCs and CHR individuals, ESZ patients showed both increasing and decreasing connectivity, mainly hypo-connectivity involving 15% of the altered voxels from four INs. The left supplementary motor area from the sensory-motor network and the right inferior occipital gyrus in the vision-related network showed a common abnormality in CHR and ESZ groups. Some brain regions also showed a CHR-unique alteration (primarily the CHR-increasing connectivity). In summary, CHR individuals generally showed intermediate connectivity between HCs and ESZ patients across multiple INs, suggesting that some dysconnectivity patterns evident in ESZ predate psychosis in attenuated form during the psychosis risk stage. Hence, these connectivity measures may serve as possible biomarkers to predict schizophrenia progression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuhui Du
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Shanxi University, School of Computer & Information Technology, Taiyuan, China.
| | - Susanna L Fryer
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; The Mental Health Service, San Francisco VA Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | | | - Jing Sui
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Brainnetome Center and National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Qingbao Yu
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | - Jiayu Chen
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | - Barbara Stuart
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Rachel L Loewy
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Vince D Calhoun
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | - Daniel H Mathalon
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; The Mental Health Service, San Francisco VA Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA, USA.
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217
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Du Y, Fryer SL, Fu Z, Lin D, Sui J, Chen J, Damaraju E, Mennigen E, Stuart B, Loewy RL, Mathalon DH, Calhoun VD. Dynamic functional connectivity impairments in early schizophrenia and clinical high-risk for psychosis. Neuroimage 2017; 180:632-645. [PMID: 29038030 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.10.022] [Citation(s) in RCA: 84] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2017] [Revised: 09/29/2017] [Accepted: 10/11/2017] [Indexed: 01/14/2023] Open
Abstract
Individuals at clinical high-risk (CHR) for psychosis are characterized by attenuated psychotic symptoms. Only a minority of CHR individuals convert to full-blown psychosis. Therefore, there is a strong interest in identifying neurobiological abnormalities underlying the psychosis risk syndrome. Dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) captures time-varying connectivity over short time scales, and has the potential to reveal complex brain functional organization. Based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 70 healthy controls (HCs), 53 CHR individuals, and 58 early illness schizophrenia (ESZ) patients, we applied a novel group information guided ICA (GIG-ICA) to estimate inherent connectivity states from DFC, and then investigated group differences. We found that ESZ patients showed more aberrant connectivities and greater alterations than CHR individuals. Results also suggested that disease-related connectivity states occurred in CHR and ESZ groups. Regarding the dominant state with the highest contribution to dynamic connectivity, ESZ patients exhibited greater impairments than CHR individuals primarily in the cerebellum, frontal cortex, thalamus and temporal cortex, while CHR and ESZ populations shared common aberrances mainly in the supplementary motor area, parahippocampal gyrus and postcentral cortex. CHR-specific changes were also found in the connections between the superior frontal gyrus and calcarine cortex in the dominant state. Our findings suggest that CHR individuals generally show an intermediate functional connectivity pattern between HCs and SZ patients but also have unique connectivity alterations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yuhui Du
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; School of Computer & Information Technology, Shanxi University, Taiyuan, China.
| | - Susanna L Fryer
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; The Mental Health Service, San Francisco VA Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Zening Fu
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | | | - Jing Sui
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Brainnetome Center and National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition, Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Jiayu Chen
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | | | - Eva Mennigen
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | - Barbara Stuart
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Rachel L Loewy
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Daniel H Mathalon
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA; The Mental Health Service, San Francisco VA Healthcare System, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Vince D Calhoun
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
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218
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Barber AD, Lindquist MA, DeRosse P, Karlsgodt KH. Dynamic Functional Connectivity States Reflecting Psychotic-like Experiences. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2017; 3:443-453. [PMID: 29735154 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.09.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/30/2017] [Revised: 09/13/2017] [Accepted: 09/14/2017] [Indexed: 01/23/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) are associated with lower social and occupational functioning, and lower executive function. Emerging evidence also suggests that PLEs reflect neural dysfunction resembling that of psychotic disorders. METHODS The present study examined dynamic connectivity related to a measure of PLEs derived from the Achenbach Adult Self-Report, in an otherwise-healthy sample of adults from the Human Connectome Project. A total of 76 PLE-endorsing and 153 control participants were included in the final sample. To characterize network dysfunction, dynamic connectivity states were examined across large-scale resting-state networks using dynamic conditional correlation and k-means clustering. RESULTS Three dynamic states were identified. The PLE-endorsing group spent more time than the control group in state 1, a state reflecting hyperconnectivity within visual regions and hypoconnectivity within the default mode network, and less time in state 2, a state characterized by robust within-network connectivity for all networks and strong default mode network anticorrelations. Within the PLE-endorsing group, worse executive function was associated with more time spent in and more transitions into state 1 and less time spent in and fewer transitions into state 3. CONCLUSIONS PLEs are associated with altered large-scale brain dynamics, which tip the system away from spending more time in states reflecting more "typical" connectivity patterns toward more time in states reflecting visual hyperconnectivity and default mode hypoconnectivity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anita D Barber
- Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York.
| | - Martin A Lindquist
- Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
| | - Pamela DeRosse
- Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York
| | - Katherine H Karlsgodt
- Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
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219
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Walther S, Stegmayer K, Federspiel A, Bohlhalter S, Wiest R, Viher PV. Aberrant Hyperconnectivity in the Motor System at Rest Is Linked to Motor Abnormalities in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders. Schizophr Bull 2017; 43:982-992. [PMID: 28911049 PMCID: PMC5581901 DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbx091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 98] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Motor abnormalities are frequently observed in schizophrenia and structural alterations of the motor system have been reported. The association of aberrant motor network function, however, has not been tested. We hypothesized that abnormal functional connectivity would be related to the degree of motor abnormalities in schizophrenia. In 90 subjects (46 patients) we obtained resting stated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for 8 minutes 40 seconds at 3T. Participants further completed a motor battery on the scanning day. Regions of interest (ROI) were cortical motor areas, basal ganglia, thalamus and motor cerebellum. We computed ROI-to-ROI functional connectivity. Principal component analyses of motor behavioral data produced 4 factors (primary motor, catatonia and dyskinesia, coordination, and spontaneous motor activity). Motor factors were correlated with connectivity values. Schizophrenia was characterized by hyperconnectivity in 3 main areas: motor cortices to thalamus, motor cortices to cerebellum, and prefrontal cortex to the subthalamic nucleus. In patients, thalamocortical hyperconnectivity was linked to catatonia and dyskinesia, whereas aberrant connectivity between rostral anterior cingulate and caudate was linked to the primary motor factor. Likewise, connectivity between motor cortex and cerebellum correlated with spontaneous motor activity. Therefore, altered functional connectivity suggests a specific intrinsic and tonic neural abnormality in the motor system in schizophrenia. Furthermore, altered neural activity at rest was linked to motor abnormalities on the behavioral level. Thus, aberrant resting state connectivity may indicate a system out of balance, which produces characteristic behavioral alterations.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Walther
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland;,To whom correspondence should be addressed; Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Murtenstrasse 21, 3008 Bern, Switzerland; tel: +41-31-632-8841, fax: +41-31-632-8950, e-mail:
| | - Katharina Stegmayer
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Andrea Federspiel
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | | | - Roland Wiest
- Support Center of Advanced Neuroimaging, Institute of Neuroradiology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Petra V Viher
- Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
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220
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Finn ES, Todd Constable R. Individual variation in functional brain connectivity: implications for personalized approaches to psychiatric disease. DIALOGUES IN CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE 2017. [PMID: 27757062 PMCID: PMC5067145 DOI: 10.31887/dcns.2016.18.3/efinn] [Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/28/2022]
Abstract
Functional brain connectivity measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a popular technique for investigating neural organization in both healthy subjects and patients with mental illness. Despite a rapidly growing body of literature, however, functional connectivity research has yet to deliver biomarkers that can aid psychiatric diagnosis or prognosis at the single-subject level. One impediment to developing such practical tools has been uncertainty regarding the ratio of intra- to interindividual variability in functional connectivity; in other words, how much variance is state- versus trait-related. Here, we review recent evidence that functional connectivity profiles are both reliable within subjects and unique across subjects, and that features of these profiles relate to behavioral phenotypes. Together, these results suggest the potential to discover reliable correlates of present and future illness and/or response to treatment in the strength of an individual's functional brain connections. Ultimately, this work could help develop personalized approaches to psychiatric illness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily S Finn
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - R Todd Constable
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Department of Radiology and Bioimaging Sciences, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; Department of Neurosurgery, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven Connecticut, USA
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221
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Bernard JA, Goen JRM, Maldonado T. A case for motor network contributions to schizophrenia symptoms: Evidence from resting-state connectivity. Hum Brain Mapp 2017; 38:4535-4545. [PMID: 28603856 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.23680] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2017] [Revised: 04/27/2017] [Accepted: 05/25/2017] [Indexed: 12/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Though schizophrenia (SCZ) is classically defined based on positive symptoms and the negative symptoms of the disease prove to be debilitating for many patients, motor deficits are often present as well. A growing literature highlights the importance of motor systems and networks in the disease, and it may be the case that dysfunction in motor networks relates to the pathophysiology and etiology of SCZ. To test this and build upon recent work in SCZ and in at-risk populations, we investigated cortical and cerebellar motor functional networks at rest in SCZ and controls using publically available data. We analyzed data from 82 patients and 88 controls. We found key group differences in resting-state connectivity patterns that highlight dysfunction in motor circuits and also implicate the thalamus. Furthermore, we demonstrated that in SCZ, these resting-state networks are related to both positive and negative symptom severity. Though the ventral prefrontal cortex and corticostriatal pathways more broadly have been implicated in negative symptom severity, here we extend these findings to include motor-striatal connections, as increased connectivity between the primary motor cortex and basal ganglia was associated with more severe negative symptoms. Together, these findings implicate motor networks in the symptomatology of psychosis, and we speculate that these networks may be contributing to the etiology of the disease. Overt motor deficits in SCZ may signal underlying network dysfunction that contributes to the overall disease state. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4535-4545, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica A Bernard
- Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, Texas.,Texas A&M University Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, Texas
| | | | - Ted Maldonado
- Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, Texas
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222
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Sheffield JM, Kandala S, Tamminga CA, Pearlson GD, Keshavan MS, Sweeney JA, Clementz BA, Lerman-Sinkoff DB, Hill SK, Barch DM. Transdiagnostic Associations Between Functional Brain Network Integrity and Cognition. JAMA Psychiatry 2017; 74:605-613. [PMID: 28467520 PMCID: PMC5539843 DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2017.0669] [Citation(s) in RCA: 101] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Cognitive impairment occurs across the psychosis spectrum and is associated with functional outcome. However, it is unknown whether these shared manifestations of cognitive dysfunction across diagnostic categories also reflect shared neurobiological mechanisms or whether the source of impairment differs. OBJECTIVE To examine whether the general cognitive deficit observed across psychotic disorders is similarly associated with functional integrity of 2 brain networks widely implicated in supporting many cognitive domains. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 201 healthy control participants and 375 patients with psychotic disorders from the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) consortium were studied from September 29, 2007, to May 31, 2011. The B-SNIP recruited healthy controls and stable outpatients from 6 sites: Baltimore, Maryland; Boston, Massachusetts; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; Detroit, Michigan; and Hartford, Connecticut. All participants underwent cognitive testing and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Data analysis was performed from April 28, 2015, to February 21, 2017. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia was used to measure cognitive ability. A principal axis factor analysis on the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia battery yielded a single factor (54% variance explained) that served as the measure of general cognitive ability. Functional network integrity measures included global and local efficiency of the whole brain, cingulo-opercular network (CON), frontoparietal network, and auditory network and exploratory analyses of all networks from the Power atlas. Group differences in network measures, associations between cognition and network measures, and mediation models were tested. RESULTS The final sample for the current study included 201 healthy controls, 143 patients with schizophrenia, 103 patients with schizoaffective disorder, and 129 patients with psychotic bipolar disorder (mean [SD] age, 35.1 [12.0] years; 281 male [48.8%] and 295 female [51.2%]; 181 white [31.4%], 348 black [60.4%], and 47 other [8.2%]). Patients with schizophrenia (Cohen d = 0.36, P < .001) and psychotic bipolar disorder (Cohen d = 0.33, P = .002) had significantly reduced CON global efficiency compared with healthy controls. All patients with psychotic disorders had significantly reduced CON local efficiency, but the clinical groups did not differ from one another. The CON global efficiency was significantly associated with general cognitive ability across all groups (β = 0.099, P = .009) and significantly mediated the association between psychotic disorder status and general cognition (β = -0.037; 95% CI, -0.076 to -0.014). Subcortical network global efficiency was also significantly reduced in psychotic disorders (F3,587 = 4.01, P = .008) and positively predicted cognitive ability (β = 0.094, P = .009). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE These findings provide evidence that reduced CON and subcortical network efficiency play a role in the general cognitive deficit observed across the psychosis spectrum. They provide new support for the dimensional hypothesis that a shared neurobiological mechanism underlies cognitive impairment in psychotic disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia M. Sheffield
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri
| | - Sridhar Kandala
- Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri
| | - Carol A. Tamminga
- Department of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
| | - Godfrey D. Pearlson
- Departments of Psychiatry and Neurobiology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut,Olin Research Center, Institute of Living, Hartford, Connecticut
| | - Matcheri S. Keshavan
- Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts,Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
| | - John A. Sweeney
- Department of Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio
| | - Brett A. Clementz
- BioImaging Research Center, Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens,BioImaging Research Center, Department of Neuroscience, University of Georgia, Athens
| | | | - S. Kristian Hill
- Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Deanna M. Barch
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri,Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri,Department of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, Missouri
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223
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Abstract
The transdiagnostic expression of psychotic experiences in common mental disorder (anxiety/depression/substance use disorder) is associated with a poorer prognosis, and a small minority of people may indeed develop a clinical picture that meets criteria for schizophrenia. However, it appears neither useful nor valid to observe early states of multidimensional psychopathology in young people through the "schizo"-prism, and apply misleadingly simple, unnecessary and inefficient binary concepts of "risk" and "transition". A review of the "ultra-high risk" (UHR) or "clinical high risk" (CHR) literature indicates that UHR/CHR samples are highly heterogeneous and represent individuals diagnosed with common mental disorder (anxiety/depression/substance use disorder) and a degree of psychotic experiences. Epidemiological research has shown that psychotic experiences are a (possibly non-causal) marker of the severity of multidimensional psychopathology, driving poor outcome, yet notions of "risk" and "transition" in UHR/CHR research are restrictively defined on the basis of positive psychotic phenomena alone, ignoring how baseline differences in multidimensional psychopathology may differentially impact course and outcome. The concepts of "risk" and "transition" in UHR/CHR research are measured on the same dimensional scale, yet are used to produce artificial diagnostic shifts. In fact, "transition" in UHR/CHR research occurs mainly as a function of variable sample enrichment strategies rather than the UHR/CHR "criteria" themselves. Furthermore, transition rates in UHR/CHR research are inflated as they do not exclude false positives associated with the natural fluctuation of dimensional expression of psychosis. Biological associations with "transition" thus likely represent false positive findings, as was the initial claim of strong effects of omega-3 polyunsatured fatty acids in UHR samples. A large body of UHR/CHR intervention research has focused on the questionable outcome of "transition", which shows lack of correlation with functional outcome. It may be more productive to consider the full range of person-specific psychopathology in all young individuals who seek help for mental health problems, instead of "policing" youngsters for the transdiagnostic dimension of psychosis. Instead of the relatively inefficient medical high-risk approach, a public health perspective, focusing on improved access to a low-stigma, high-hope, small scale and youth-specific environment with acceptable language and interventions may represent a more useful and efficient strategy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jim van Os
- Department of Psychiatry and PsychologyMaastricht University Medical CentreMaastrichtthe Netherlands,King's College London, King's Health Partners, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of PsychiatryLondonUK
| | - Sinan Guloksuz
- Department of Psychiatry and PsychologyMaastricht University Medical CentreMaastrichtthe Netherlands,Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of MedicineNew HavenCTUSA
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224
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Learning stable and predictive network-based patterns of schizophrenia and its clinical symptoms. NPJ SCHIZOPHRENIA 2017; 3:22. [PMID: 28560268 PMCID: PMC5441570 DOI: 10.1038/s41537-017-0022-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/02/2017] [Revised: 04/04/2017] [Accepted: 04/20/2017] [Indexed: 01/19/2023]
Abstract
Schizophrenia is often associated with disrupted brain connectivity. However, identifying specific neuroimaging-based patterns pathognomonic for schizophrenia and related symptom severity remains a challenging open problem requiring large-scale data-driven analyses emphasizing not only statistical significance but also stability across multiple datasets, contexts and cohorts. Accurate prediction on previously unseen subjects, or generalization, is also essential for any useful biomarker of schizophrenia. In order to build a predictive model based on functional network feature patterns, we studied whole-brain fMRI functional networks, both at the voxel level and lower-resolution supervoxel level. Targeting Auditory Oddball task data on the FBIRN fMRI dataset (n = 95), we considered node-degree and link-weight network features and evaluated stability and generalization accuracy of statistically significant feature sets in discriminating patients vs. CONTROLS We also applied sparse multivariate regression (elastic net) to whole-brain functional connectivity features, for the first time, to derive stable predictive features for symptom severity. Whole-brain link-weight features achieved 74% accuracy in identifying patients and were more stable than voxel-wise node-degrees. Link-weight features predicted severity of several negative and positive symptom scales, including inattentiveness and bizarre behavior. The most-significant, stable and discriminative functional connectivity changes involved increased correlations between thalamus and primary motor/primary sensory cortex, and between precuneus (BA7) and thalamus, putamen, and Brodmann areas BA9 and BA44. Precuneus, along with BA6 and primary sensory cortex, was also involved in predicting severity of several symptoms. Overall, the proposed multi-step methodology may help identify more reliable multivariate patterns allowing for accurate prediction of schizophrenia and its symptoms severity.
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225
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Bolkan SS, Stujenske JM, Parnaudeau S, Spellman TJ, Rauffenbart C, Abbas AI, Harris AZ, Gordon JA, Kellendonk C. Thalamic projections sustain prefrontal activity during working memory maintenance. Nat Neurosci 2017; 20:987-996. [PMID: 28481349 PMCID: PMC5501395 DOI: 10.1038/nn.4568] [Citation(s) in RCA: 313] [Impact Index Per Article: 44.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2016] [Accepted: 04/21/2017] [Indexed: 02/04/2023]
Abstract
The mediodorsal thalamus (MD) shares reciprocal connectivity with the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and decreased MD-PFC connectivity is observed in schizophrenia patients. Patients also display cognitive deficits including impairments in working memory, but a mechanistic link between thalamo-prefrontal circuit function and working memory is missing. Using pathway-specific inhibition, we found directional interactions between mouse MD and medial PFC (mPFC), with MD-to-mPFC supporting working memory maintenance and mPFC-to-MD supporting subsequent choice. We further identify mPFC neurons that display elevated spiking during the delay, a feature that was absent on error trials and required MD inputs for sustained maintenance. Strikingly, delay-tuned neurons had minimal overlap with spatially tuned neurons, and each mPFC population exhibited mutually exclusive dependence on MD and hippocampal inputs. These findings indicate a role for MD in sustaining prefrontal activity during working memory maintenance. Consistent with this idea, we found that enhancing MD excitability was sufficient to enhance task performance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Scott S Bolkan
- Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA
| | - Joseph M Stujenske
- Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA
| | - Sebastien Parnaudeau
- Institut de Biologie Paris Seine, UM119, Neuroscience Paris Seine, CNRS UMR8246, INSERM U1130, Paris, France
| | - Timothy J Spellman
- Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, New York, USA
| | - Caroline Rauffenbart
- Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Department of Pharmacology, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Division of Molecular Therapeutics, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA
| | - Atheir I Abbas
- Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Division of Integrative Neuroscience, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA
| | - Alexander Z Harris
- Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Division of Integrative Neuroscience, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA
| | - Joshua A Gordon
- Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Division of Integrative Neuroscience, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA.,National Institute of Mental Health, Office of the Director, Bethesda, Maryland, USA
| | - Christoph Kellendonk
- Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Department of Pharmacology, Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.,Division of Molecular Therapeutics, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA
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226
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Prediction of conversion to psychosis in individuals with an at-risk mental state: a brief update on recent developments. Curr Opin Psychiatry 2017; 30:209-219. [PMID: 28212173 DOI: 10.1097/yco.0000000000000320] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW So far, only little more than one-third of individuals classified as being at-risk for psychosis have been shown to actually convert to frank psychosis during follow-up. There have therefore been enormous efforts to improve the accuracy of predicting this transition. We reviewed the most recent studies in the field with the aim to clarify whether accuracy of prediction has been improved by the different research endeavors and what could be done to further improve it, and/or what alternative goals research should pursue. RECENT FINDINGS A total of 56 studies published between May 2015 and December 2016 were included, of which eight were meta-analyses. New meta-analytical evidence confirms that established instruments for checking clinical risk criteria have an excellent clinical utility in individuals referred to high-risk services. Within a such identified group of ultra-high-risk (UHR) individuals, especially Brief Limited Intermittent Psychotic Symptoms and Attenuated Psychotic Symptoms seem to predict transition. Further assessments should be performed within the UHR individuals, as risk of transition seems particularly high in those with an even higher severity of certain symptoms such as suspiciousness or anhedonia, in those with lower global or social functioning, poor neurocognitive performance or cannabis abuse. Also, electroencephalography, neuroimaging and blood biomarkers might contribute to improving individual prediction. The most promising approach certainly is a staged multidomain assessment. Risk calculators to integrate all data for an individualized prediction are being developed. SUMMARY Prediction of psychosis is already possible with an excellent prognostic performance based on clinical assessments. Recent studies show that this accuracy can be further improved by using multidomain approaches and modern statistics for individualized prediction. The challenge now is the translation into the clinic with a broad clinical implementation.
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227
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Ramsay IS, Nienow TM, MacDonald AW. Increases in Intrinsic Thalamocortical Connectivity and Overall Cognition Following Cognitive Remediation in Chronic Schizophrenia. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY. COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2017; 2:355-362. [PMID: 28584882 PMCID: PMC5455781 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2016.11.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/06/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Thalamic projections to the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are critical for cognition, and disruptions in these circuits are thought to underlie the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Cognitive remediation (REM) is a behavioral intervention that holds promise for improving cognition and functioning in schizophrenia, however the extent to which it affects thalamo-prefrontal connections has not been researched. This study sought to determine whether patients with schizophrenia who undergo a placebo-controlled trial of REM show increased functional connectivity between the thalamus and PFC, and whether these changes correspond to improvements in cognition. METHODS Twenty-six patients with chronic schizophrenia were randomized to either 48 hours (over 16 weeks) of a drill-and-practice working memory-focused REM or an active placebo condition. All participants underwent cognitive assessment (MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery), as well as both resting and task-based fMRI before and after their respective intervention. All clinicians, technicians, and raters were blind to participant condition. RESULTS We observed changes in resting-state connectivity in the PFC for the REM group but not the placebo group. Increased intrinsic connectivity between the thalamus and right middle frontal gyrus correlated with improvements in overall cognition. Additionally, lower baseline cognition correlated with greater increases in connectivity between the thalamus and PFC. Similar findings were observed when patients were scanned during a working memory task. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that increases in thalamo-prefrontal circuitry correspond with training-related improvements of the cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Tasha M. Nienow
- Minneapolis VA Health Care System
- University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry
| | - Angus W. MacDonald
- University of Minnesota Department of Psychology
- University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry
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228
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Bernard JA, Orr JM, Mittal VA. Cerebello-thalamo-cortical networks predict positive symptom progression in individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis. NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL 2017; 14:622-628. [PMID: 28348953 PMCID: PMC5357699 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.03.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 83] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2016] [Revised: 03/03/2017] [Accepted: 03/04/2017] [Indexed: 01/12/2023]
Abstract
Prospective longitudinal evaluation of adolescents at ultra-high-risk (UHR) for the development of psychosis enables an enriched neurodevelopmental perspective of disease progression in the absence of many of the factors that typically confound research with formally psychotic patients (antipsychotic medications, drug/alcohol dependence). The cerebellum has been linked to cognitive dysfunction and symptom severity in schizophrenia and recent work from our team suggests that it is a promising target for investigation in UHR individuals as well. However, the cerebellum and cerebello-thalamo-cortical networks have not been investigated developmentally or with respect to disease progression in this critical population. Further, to date, the types of longitudinal multimodal connectivity studies that would substantially inform our understanding of this area have not yet been conducted. In the present investigation 26 UHR and 24 healthy control adolescents were administered structured clinical interviews and scanned at baseline and then again at 12-month time points to investigate both functional and structural connectivity development of cerebello-thalamo-cortical networks in conjunction with symptom progression. Our results provide evidence of abnormal functional and structural cerebellar network development in the UHR group. Crucially, we also found that cerebello-thalamo-cortical network development and connectivity at baseline are associated with positive symptom course, suggesting that cerebellar networks may be a biomarker of disease progression. Together, these findings provide support for neurodevelopmental models of psychotic disorders and suggest that the cerebellum and respective networks with the cortex may be especially important for elucidating the pathophysiology of psychosis and highlighting novel treatment targets. The cerebellum is an important target of research across the psychosis spectrum. Cerebellar networks were investigated over 12 months in youth at-risk for psychosis. Network development differs from controls in the at-risk group. Cerebello-cortical network connectivity predicts worsening positive symptoms. Supports neurodevelopmental models of psychosis and implicates the cerebellum.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jessica A Bernard
- Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, United States; Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, United States; Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, United States
| | - Joseph M Orr
- Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, United States; Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, United States; Institute of Cognitive Science, University of Colorado Boulder, United States
| | - Vijay A Mittal
- Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, United States; Center for Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, United States; Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, United States
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229
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Li T, Wang Q, Zhang J, Rolls ET, Yang W, Palaniyappan L, Zhang L, Cheng W, Yao Y, Liu Z, Gong X, Luo Q, Tang Y, Crow TJ, Broome MR, Xu K, Li C, Wang J, Liu Z, Lu G, Wang F, Feng J. Brain-Wide Analysis of Functional Connectivity in First-Episode and Chronic Stages of Schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull 2017; 43:436-448. [PMID: 27445261 PMCID: PMC5605268 DOI: 10.1093/schbul/sbw099] [Citation(s) in RCA: 80] [Impact Index Per Article: 11.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
Published reports of functional abnormalities in schizophrenia remain divergent due to lack of staging point-of-view and whole-brain analysis. To identify key functional-connectivity differences of first-episode (FE) and chronic patients from controls using resting-state functional MRI, and determine changes that are specifically associated with disease onset, a clinical staging model is adopted. We analyze functional-connectivity differences in prodromal, FE (mostly drug naïve), and chronic patients from their matched controls from 6 independent datasets involving a total of 789 participants (343 patients). Brain-wide functional-connectivity analysis was performed in different datasets and the results from the datasets of the same stage were then integrated by meta-analysis, with Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Prodromal patients differed from controls in their pattern of functional-connectivity involving the inferior frontal gyri (Broca's area). In FE patients, 90% of the functional-connectivity changes involved the frontal lobes, mostly the inferior frontal gyrus including Broca's area, and these changes were correlated with delusions/blunted affect. For chronic patients, functional-connectivity differences extended to wider areas of the brain, including reduced thalamo-frontal connectivity, and increased thalamo-temporal and thalamo-sensorimoter connectivity that were correlated with the positive, negative, and general symptoms, respectively. Thalamic changes became prominent at the chronic stage. These results provide evidence for distinct patterns of functional-dysconnectivity across FE and chronic stages of schizophrenia. Importantly, abnormalities in the frontal language networks appear early, at the time of disease onset. The identification of stage-specific pathological processes may help to understand the disease course of schizophrenia and identify neurobiological markers crucial for early diagnosis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tao Li
- The Mental Health Center and the Psychiatric Laboratory, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, PR China
- West China Brain Research Centre, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, PR China
| | - Qiang Wang
- The Mental Health Center and the Psychiatric Laboratory, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, PR China
- West China Brain Research Centre, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, PR China
| | - Jie Zhang
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
- Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing, PR China
| | - Edmund T Rolls
- Oxford Centre for Computational Neuroscience, Oxford, UK
- Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
| | - Wei Yang
- Shanghai Center for Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Lena Palaniyappan
- Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology, University of Nottingham, Centre for Translational Neuroimaging, Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham, UK
- Institute of Mental Health, Nottingham, UK and Penticton Regional Hospital, Penticton, British Columbia, Canada
| | - Lu Zhang
- Shanghai Center for Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Wei Cheng
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Ye Yao
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Zhaowen Liu
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
- School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an, Shannxi, PR China
| | - Xiaohong Gong
- School of life science department, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Qiang Luo
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
- School of life science department, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Yanqing Tang
- Psychiatry department, The First Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, PR China
| | - Timothy J Crow
- SANE POWIC, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK
| | - Matthew R Broome
- Department of Psychiatry, Medical Science Division, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
- Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK
- Division of Mental Health and Wellbeing, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
| | - Ke Xu
- Psychiatry department, The First Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, PR China
| | - Chunbo Li
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders (No. 13dz2260500), Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Jijun Wang
- Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders (No. 13dz2260500), Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, PR China
| | - Zhening Liu
- Mental Health Center, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, PR China
| | - Guangming Lu
- Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing, PR China
| | - Fei Wang
- Psychiatry department, The First Affiliated Hospital, China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning, PR China
| | - Jianfeng Feng
- Institute of Science and Technology for Brain Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
- Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
- Shanghai Center for Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai, PR China
- Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, PR China
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230
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Gong Q, Hu X, Pettersson-Yeo W, Xu X, Lui S, Crossley N, Wu M, Zhu H, Mechelli A. Network-Level Dysconnectivity in Drug-Naïve First-Episode Psychosis: Dissociating Transdiagnostic and Diagnosis-Specific Alterations. Neuropsychopharmacology 2017; 42:933-940. [PMID: 27782128 PMCID: PMC5312071 DOI: 10.1038/npp.2016.247] [Citation(s) in RCA: 40] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2016] [Revised: 10/06/2016] [Accepted: 10/17/2016] [Indexed: 02/05/2023]
Abstract
The neuroimaging literature provides compelling evidence for functional dysconnectivity in people with psychosis. However, it is likely that at least some of the observed alterations represent secondary effects of illness chronicity and/or antipsychotic medication. In addition, the extent to which these alterations are specific to psychosis or represent a transdiagnostic feature of psychiatric illness remains unclear. The aim of this study was therefore to examine the diagnostic specificity of functional dysconnectivity in drug-naïve first-episode psychosis (FEP). We used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and functional connectivity analysis to estimate network-level connectivity in 50 patients with FEP, 50 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), 50 patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and 122 healthy controls (HCs). The FEP, MDD, and PTSD groups showed reductions in intranetwork connectivity of the default mode network relative to the HC group (p<0.05 corrected); therefore, intranetwork alterations were expressed across the three diagnostic groups. In addition, the FEP group showed heightened internetwork connectivity between the default mode network, particularly the anterior cingulate cortex, and the central executive network relative to the MDD, PTSD, and HC groups (p<0.05 corrected); therefore, internetwork alterations were specific to the FEP. These findings suggest that network-level alterations are present in individuals with a first episode of psychosis who have not been exposed to antipsychotic medication. In addition, they suggest a dissociation between aberrant internetwork connectivity as a distinctive feature of psychosis and aberrant intranetwork connectivity as a transdiagnostic feature of psychiatric illness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiyong Gong
- Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Departments of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China,Department of Psychology, School of Public Administration, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China,Department of Psychiatry, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Xinyu Hu
- Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Departments of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - William Pettersson-Yeo
- Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Xin Xu
- Department of Psychiatry, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Su Lui
- Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Departments of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Nicolas Crossley
- Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK,Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Min Wu
- Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Departments of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
| | - Hongyan Zhu
- Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China,Laboratory of Stem Cell Biology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, 37 Guoxue Lane, Wuhou District, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, 610041, China, Tel/Fax: +86 (0) 28 85423503, E-mail:
| | - Andrea Mechelli
- Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK
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231
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Cobia DJ, Smith MJ, Salinas I, Ng C, Gado M, Csernansky JG, Wang L. Progressive deterioration of thalamic nuclei relates to cortical network decline in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 2017; 180:21-27. [PMID: 27613507 PMCID: PMC5263051 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.08.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2016] [Revised: 08/03/2016] [Accepted: 08/05/2016] [Indexed: 01/28/2023]
Abstract
Thalamic abnormalities are considered part of the complex pathophysiology of schizophrenia, particularly the involvement of specific thalamic nuclei. The goals of this study were to: introduce a novel atlas-based parcellation scheme for defining various thalamic nuclei; compare their integrity in a schizophrenia sample against healthy individuals at baseline and follow-up time points, as well as rates of change over time; examine relationships between the nuclei and abnormalities in known connected cortical regions; and finally, to determine if schizophrenia-related thalamic nuclei changes relate to cognitive functioning and clinical symptoms. Subjects were from a larger longitudinal 2-year follow-up study, schizophrenia (n=20) and healthy individuals (n=20) were group-matched for age, gender, and recent-alcohol use. We used high-dimensional brain mapping to obtain thalamic morphology, and applied a novel atlas-based method for delineating anterior, mediodorsal, and pulvinar nuclei. Results from cross sectional GLMs revealed group differences in bilateral mediodorsal and anterior nuclei, while longitudinal models revealed significant group-by-time interactions for the mediodorsal and pulvinar nuclei. Cortical correlations were the strongest for the pulvinar in frontal, temporal and parietal regions, followed by the mediodorsal nucleus in frontal regions, but none in the anterior nucleus. Thalamic measures did not correlate with cognitive and clinical scores at any time point or longitudinally. Overall, findings revealed a pattern of persistent progressive abnormalities in thalamic nuclei that relate to advancing cortical decline in schizophrenia, but not with measures of behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Derin J. Cobia
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 446 E. Ontario, Suite 7-100, Chicago, IL 60611 USA
| | - Matthew J. Smith
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 446 E. Ontario, Suite 7-100, Chicago, IL 60611 USA
| | - Ilse Salinas
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 446 E. Ontario, Suite 7-100, Chicago, IL 60611 USA
| | - Charlene Ng
- Virginia Commonwealth University, Chesterfield Family Practice Center, 2500 Pocoshock Place, Suite 202, Richmond, VA 23235 USA
| | - Mohktar Gado
- Department of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, 660 S. Euclid Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110 USA
| | - John G. Csernansky
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 446 E. Ontario, Suite 7-100, Chicago, IL 60611 USA
| | - Lei Wang
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 446 E. Ontario, Suite 7-100, Chicago, IL 60611 USA,Department of Radiology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 446 E. Ontario, Suite 7-100, Chicago, IL 60611 USA
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232
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Dopamine, fronto-striato-thalamic circuits and risk for psychosis. Schizophr Res 2017; 180:48-57. [PMID: 27595552 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.08.020] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2016] [Revised: 08/16/2016] [Accepted: 08/19/2016] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
Abstract
A series of parallel, integrated circuits link distinct regions of prefrontal cortex with specific nuclei of the striatum and thalamus. Dysfunction of these fronto-striato-thalamic systems is thought to play a major role in the pathogenesis of psychosis. In this review, we examine evidence from human and animal investigations that dysfunction of a specific dorsal fronto-striato-thalamic circuit, linking the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, dorsal (associative) striatum, and mediodorsal nucleus of the thalamus, is apparent across different stages of psychosis, including prior to the onset of a first episode, suggesting that it represents a candidate risk biomarker. We consider how abnormalities at distinct points in the circuit may give rise to the pattern of findings seen in patient populations, and how these changes relate to disruptions in dopamine, glutamate and GABA signaling.
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233
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Giraldo-Chica M, Woodward ND. Review of thalamocortical resting-state fMRI studies in schizophrenia. Schizophr Res 2017; 180:58-63. [PMID: 27531067 PMCID: PMC5297399 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.08.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 140] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2016] [Revised: 08/03/2016] [Accepted: 08/06/2016] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
Abstract
Brain circuitry underlying cognition, emotion, and perception is abnormal in schizophrenia. There is considerable evidence that the neuropathology of schizophrenia includes the thalamus, a key hub of cortical-subcortical circuitry and an important regulator of cortical activity. However, the thalamus is a heterogeneous structure composed of several nuclei with distinct inputs and cortical connections. Limitations of conventional neuroimaging methods and conflicting findings from post-mortem investigations have made it difficult to determine if thalamic pathology in schizophrenia is widespread or limited to specific thalamocortical circuits. Resting-state fMRI has proven invaluable for understanding the large-scale functional organization of the brain and investigating neural circuitry relevant to psychiatric disorders. This article summarizes resting-state fMRI investigations of thalamocortical functional connectivity in schizophrenia. Particular attention is paid to the course, diagnostic specificity, and clinical correlates of thalamocortical network dysfunction.
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234
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Pratt J, Dawson N, Morris BJ, Grent-'t-Jong T, Roux F, Uhlhaas PJ. Thalamo-cortical communication, glutamatergic neurotransmission and neural oscillations: A unique window into the origins of ScZ? Schizophr Res 2017; 180:4-12. [PMID: 27317361 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.05.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/11/2016] [Revised: 05/12/2016] [Accepted: 05/17/2016] [Indexed: 12/11/2022]
Abstract
The thalamus has recently received renewed interest in systems-neuroscience and schizophrenia (ScZ) research because of emerging evidence highlighting its important role in coordinating functional interactions in cortical-subcortical circuits. Moreover, higher cognitive functions, such as working memory and attention, have been related to thalamo-cortical interactions, providing a novel perspective for the understanding of the neural substrate of cognition. The current review will support this perspective by summarizing evidence on the crucial role of neural oscillations in facilitating thalamo-cortical (TC) interactions during normal brain functioning and their potential impairment in ScZ. Specifically, we will focus on the relationship between NMDA-R mediated (glutamatergic) neurotransmission in TC-interactions. To this end, we will first review the functional anatomy and neurotransmitters in thalamic circuits, followed by a review of the oscillatory signatures and cognitive processes supported by TC-circuits. In the second part of the paper, data from preclinical research as well as human studies will be summarized that have implicated TC-interactions as a crucial target for NMDA-receptor hypofunctioning. Finally, we will compare these neural signatures with current evidence from ScZ-research, suggesting a potential overlap between alterations in TC-circuits as the result of NMDA-R deficits and stage-specific alterations in large-scale networks in ScZ.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith Pratt
- Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy & Biomedical Sciences, Univ. of Strathclyde, United Kingdom
| | - Neil Dawson
- Division of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Lancaster, United Kingdom
| | - Brain J Morris
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, Univ. of Glasgow, United Kingdom
| | | | - Frederic Roux
- School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
| | - Peter J Uhlhaas
- Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, Univ. of Glasgow, United Kingdom.
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235
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Anticevic A. Understanding the role of thalamic circuits in schizophrenia neuropathology. Schizophr Res 2017; 180:1-3. [PMID: 27939828 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.11.044] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2016] [Revised: 11/28/2016] [Accepted: 11/28/2016] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Alan Anticevic
- Department of Psychiatry, Yale University, United States; Department of Psychology, Yale University, United States.
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236
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Toward understanding thalamocortical dysfunction in schizophrenia through computational models of neural circuit dynamics. Schizophr Res 2017; 180:70-77. [PMID: 27784534 PMCID: PMC5263120 DOI: 10.1016/j.schres.2016.10.021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 36] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/22/2016] [Revised: 10/11/2016] [Accepted: 10/14/2016] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
The thalamus is implicated in the neuropathology of schizophrenia, and multiple modalities of noninvasive neuroimaging provide converging evidence for altered thalamocortical dynamics in the disorder, such as functional connectivity and oscillatory power. However, it remains a challenge to link these neuroimaging biomarkers to underlying neural circuit mechanisms. One potential path forward is a "Computational Psychiatry" approach that leverages computational models of neural circuits to make predictions for the dynamical impact dynamical impact on specific thalamic disruptions hypothesized to occur in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Here we review biophysically-based computational models of neural circuit dynamics for large-scale resting-state networks which have been applied to schizophrenia, and for thalamic oscillations. As a key aspect of thalamocortical dysconnectivity in schizophrenia is its regional specificity, it is important to consider potential sources of intrinsic heterogeneity of cellular and circuit properties across cortical and thalamic structures.
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237
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Schmitt LI, Halassa MM. Interrogating the mouse thalamus to correct human neurodevelopmental disorders. Mol Psychiatry 2017; 22:183-191. [PMID: 27725660 PMCID: PMC5258688 DOI: 10.1038/mp.2016.183] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2016] [Revised: 08/03/2016] [Accepted: 08/25/2016] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
While localizing sensory and motor deficits is one of the cornerstones of clinical neurology, behavioral and cognitive deficits in psychiatry remain impervious to this approach. In psychiatry, major challenges include the relative subtlety by which neural circuits are perturbed, and the limited understanding of how basic circuit functions relate to thought and behavior. Neurodevelopmental disorders offer a window to addressing the first challenge given their strong genetic underpinnings, which can be linked to biological mechanisms. Such links have benefited from genetic modeling in the mouse, and in this review we highlight how this small mammal is now allowing us to crack neural circuits as well. We review recent studies of mouse thalamus, discussing how they revealed general principles that may underlie human perception and attention. Controlling the magnitude (gain) of thalamic sensory responses is a mechanism of attention, and the mouse has enabled its functional dissection at an unprecedented resolution. Further, modeling human genetic neurodevelopmental disease in the mouse has shown how diminished thalamic gain control can lead to attention deficits. This breaks new ground in how we untangle the complexity of psychiatric diseases; by making thalamic circuits accessible to mechanistic dissection; the mouse has not only taught us how they fundamentally work, but also how their dysfunction can be precisely mapped onto behavioral and cognitive deficits. Future studies promise even more progress, with the hope that principled targeting of identified thalamic circuits can be uniquely therapeutic.
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Affiliation(s)
- L. Ian Schmitt
- The Neuroscience Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY
| | - Michael M. Halassa
- The Neuroscience Institute, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY,Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY,Department of Psychiatry, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York, NY
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238
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Aberrant Temporal Connectivity in Persons at Clinical High Risk for Psychosis. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2017; 2:696-705. [PMID: 29202110 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2016.12.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/15/2023]
Abstract
Background Schizophrenia, a neurodevelopmental disorder, involves abnormalities in functional connectivity (FC) across distributed neural networks, which are thought to antedate the emergence of psychosis. In a cohort of adolescents and young adults at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis, we applied data-driven approaches to resting-state fMRI data so as to systematically characterize FC abnormalities during this period and determine whether these abnormalities are associated with psychosis risk and severity of psychotic symptoms. Methods Fifty-one CHR participants and 47 matched healthy controls (HCs) were included in our analyses. Twelve of these CHR participants developed psychosis within 3.9 years. We estimated one multivariate measure of FC and studied its relationship to CHR status, conversion to psychosis and positive symptom severity. Results Multivariate analyses revealed between-group differences in whole-brain connectivity patterns of bilateral temporal areas, mostly affecting their functional connections to the thalamus. Further, more severe positive symptoms were associated with greater connectivity abnormalities in the anterior cingulate and frontal cortex. Conclusions Our study demonstrates that the well-established FC abnormalities of the thalamus and temporal areas observed in schizophrenia are also present in the CHR period, with aberrant connectivity of the temporal cortex most associated with psychosis risk.
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239
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Teipel SJ, Wohlert A, Metzger C, Grimmer T, Sorg C, Ewers M, Meisenzahl E, Klöppel S, Borchardt V, Grothe MJ, Walter M, Dyrba M. Multicenter stability of resting state fMRI in the detection of Alzheimer's disease and amnestic MCI. NEUROIMAGE-CLINICAL 2017; 14:183-194. [PMID: 28180077 PMCID: PMC5279697 DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2017.01.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2016] [Revised: 11/30/2016] [Accepted: 01/17/2017] [Indexed: 12/26/2022]
Abstract
Background In monocentric studies, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) dementia exhibited alterations of functional cortical connectivity in resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) analyses. Multicenter studies provide access to large sample sizes, but rs-fMRI may be particularly sensitive to multiscanner effects. Methods We used data from five centers of the “German resting-state initiative for diagnostic biomarkers” (psymri.org), comprising 367 cases, including AD patients, MCI patients and healthy older controls, to assess the influence of the distributed acquisition on the group effects. We calculated accuracy of group discrimination based on whole brain functional connectivity of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) using pooled samples as well as second-level analyses across site-specific group contrast maps. Results We found decreased functional connectivity in AD patients vs. controls, including clusters in the precuneus, inferior parietal cortex, lateral temporal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. MCI subjects showed spatially similar, but less pronounced, differences in PCC connectivity when compared to controls. Group discrimination accuracy for AD vs. controls (MCI vs. controls) in the test data was below 76% (72%) based on the pooled analysis, and even lower based on the second level analysis stratified according to scanner. Only a subset of quality measures was useful to detect relevant scanner effects. Conclusions Multicenter rs-fMRI analysis needs to employ strict quality measures, including visual inspection of all the data, to avoid seriously confounded group effects. While pending further confirmation in biomarker stratified samples, these findings suggest that multicenter acquisition limits the use of rs-fMRI in AD and MCI diagnosis. Diagnostic accuracy of multicenter rs-fMRI in AD and MCI Quality metrics for multicenter rs-fMRI that should be used Quality metrics for multicenter rs-fMRI that should not be used Multicenter rs-fMRI will have limited diagnostic use in clinical routine diagnosis
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefan J Teipel
- Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany; DZNE, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Rostock, Germany
| | - Alexandra Wohlert
- Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany
| | - Coraline Metzger
- Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research (IKND), Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Otto von Guericke University, Germany and German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Magdeburg, Germany
| | - Timo Grimmer
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
| | - Christian Sorg
- Department of Neuroradiology of Klinikum rechts der Isar, Technische Universität München, Department of Psychiatry of Klinikum rechts der Isar, TUM-Neuroimaging Center, Einsteinstr. 1, 81675 Munich, Germany
| | - Michael Ewers
- Institute for Stroke and Dementia Research, Klinikum der Universität München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität LMU, Munich, Germany
| | - Eva Meisenzahl
- Department of Psychiatry, Klinikum der Universität München, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität LMU, Munich, Germany
| | - Stefan Klöppel
- Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Section of Gerontopsychiatry and Neuropsychology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Germany; University Hospital of Old Age Psychiatry, Bern, Switzerland
| | - Viola Borchardt
- Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, University Tübingen, Germany
| | - Michel J Grothe
- DZNE, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Rostock, Germany
| | - Martin Walter
- Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, University Tübingen, Germany
| | - Martin Dyrba
- DZNE, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, Rostock, Germany
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240
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Lottman KK, Kraguljac NV, White DM, Morgan CJ, Calhoun VD, Butt A, Lahti AC. Risperidone Effects on Brain Dynamic Connectivity-A Prospective Resting-State fMRI Study in Schizophrenia. Front Psychiatry 2017; 8:14. [PMID: 28220083 PMCID: PMC5292583 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2017.00014] [Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/04/2016] [Accepted: 01/17/2017] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
Resting-state functional connectivity studies in schizophrenia evaluating average connectivity over the entire experiment have reported aberrant network integration, but findings are variable. Examining time-varying (dynamic) functional connectivity may help explain some inconsistencies. We assessed dynamic network connectivity using resting-state functional MRI in patients with schizophrenia, while unmedicated (n = 34), after 1 week (n = 29) and 6 weeks of treatment with risperidone (n = 24), as well as matched controls at baseline (n = 35) and after 6 weeks (n = 19). After identifying 41 independent components (ICs) comprising resting-state networks, sliding window analysis was performed on IC timecourses using an optimal window size validated with linear support vector machines. Windowed correlation matrices were then clustered into three discrete connectivity states (a relatively sparsely connected state, a relatively abundantly connected state, and an intermediately connected state). In unmedicated patients, static connectivity was increased between five pairs of ICs and decreased between two pairs of ICs when compared to controls, dynamic connectivity showed increased connectivity between the thalamus and somatomotor network in one of the three states. State statistics indicated that, in comparison to controls, unmedicated patients had shorter mean dwell times and fraction of time spent in the sparsely connected state, and longer dwell times and fraction of time spent in the intermediately connected state. Risperidone appeared to normalize mean dwell times after 6 weeks, but not fraction of time. Results suggest that static connectivity abnormalities in schizophrenia may partly be related to altered brain network temporal dynamics rather than consistent dysconnectivity within and between functional networks and demonstrate the importance of implementing complementary data analysis techniques.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kristin K Lottman
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, AL , USA
| | - Nina V Kraguljac
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, AL , USA
| | - David M White
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, AL , USA
| | - Charity J Morgan
- Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, AL , USA
| | - Vince D Calhoun
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
| | - Allison Butt
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, AL , USA
| | - Adrienne C Lahti
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham , Birmingham, AL , USA
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241
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Delevich K, Abi-Dargham A, Hall J, Sawa A. Studying schizophrenia in the post-genomic era: perspectives from the 2016 summer Banbury Workshop at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Mol Psychiatry 2017; 22:2-3. [PMID: 27777417 DOI: 10.1038/mp.2016.197] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- K Delevich
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - A Abi-Dargham
- Department of Psychiatry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA
| | - J Hall
- Neuroscience & Mental Health Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
| | - A Sawa
- Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
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242
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Finn ES. Individual variation in functional brain connectivity: implications for personalized approaches to psychiatric disease. DIALOGUES IN CLINICAL NEUROSCIENCE 2016; 18:277-287. [PMID: 27757062 PMCID: PMC5067145] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/01/2024]
Abstract
Functional brain connectivity measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a popular technique for investigating neural organization in both healthy subjects and patients with mental illness. Despite a rapidly growing body of literature, however, functional connectivity research has yet to deliver biomarkers that can aid psychiatric diagnosis or prognosis at the single-subject level. One impediment to developing such practical tools has been uncertainty regarding the ratio of intra- to interindividual variability in functional connectivity; in other words, how much variance is state- versus trait-related. Here, we review recent evidence that functional connectivity profiles are both reliable within subjects and unique across subjects, and that features of these profiles relate to behavioral phenotypes. Together, these results suggest the potential to discover reliable correlates of present and future illness and/or response to treatment in the strength of an individual's functional brain connections. Ultimately, this work could help develop personalized approaches to psychiatric illness.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emily S. Finn
- Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
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243
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Opportunities and Challenges for Psychiatry in the Connectomic Era. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2016; 2:9-19. [PMID: 29560890 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2016.08.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2016] [Revised: 08/01/2016] [Accepted: 08/02/2016] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Most major psychiatric disorders arise from disturbances of anatomically distributed neural systems rather than isolated dysfunction of circumscribed brain regions. The past decade has witnessed rapid advances in our capacity to measure, map, and model neural connectivity in diverse species and at different resolution scales, from the level of individual neurons and synapses to large-scale systems spanning the entire brain. In this review, we consider how these techniques, when grounded in the theory and methods of network science, can contribute to a biological understanding of mental illness. We focus in particular on attempts to accurately map brain network disturbances in clinical populations and to model the mechanistic causes of these changes. This work suggests that pathology within highly connected hub regions is a consistent finding across a broad array of phenotypically diverse disorders, and that disparate changes in brain network organization can sometimes be explained by a surprisingly small and simple set of mechanisms.
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244
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Fryer SL, Roach BJ, Wiley K, Loewy RL, Ford JM, Mathalon DH. Reduced Amplitude of Low-Frequency Brain Oscillations in the Psychosis Risk Syndrome and Early Illness Schizophrenia. Neuropsychopharmacology 2016; 41:2388-98. [PMID: 27067126 PMCID: PMC4946069 DOI: 10.1038/npp.2016.51] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2016] [Revised: 03/18/2016] [Accepted: 03/25/2016] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Low-frequency oscillations (LFOs) of the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal are gaining interest as potential biomarkers sensitive to neuropsychiatric pathology. Schizophrenia has been associated with alterations in intrinsic LFOs that covary with cognitive deficits and symptoms. However, the extent to which LFO dysfunction is present before schizophrenia illness onset remains unknown. Resting-state FMRI data were collected from clinical high-risk (CHR; n=45) youth, early illness schizophrenia (ESZ; n=74) patients, and healthy controls (HCs; n=85) aged 12-35 years. Age-adjusted voxelwise fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF; 0.01-0.08 Hz) of the BOLD signal was compared among the three groups. Main effects of Group (p<0.005 height threshold, familywise error cluster-level corrected p<0.05) were followed up via Tukey-corrected pairwise comparisons. Significant main effects of Group (p<0.05) revealed decreased fALFF in ESZ and CHR groups relative to HCs, with values in the CHR group falling between those of ESZ and HC groups. These differences were identified primarily in posterior cortex, including temporoparietal regions, extending into occipital and cerebellar lobes. Less LFO activity was related to greater symptom severity in both CHR and ESZ groups in several of these posterior cortical regions. These data support an intermediate phenotype of reduced posterior cortical LFO amplitude in CHR individuals, with resting fALFF values smaller than in HCs but higher than in ESZ patients. Findings indicate that LFO magnitude alterations relate to clinical symptoms and predate psychosis onset but are more pronounced in the early stages of schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Susanna L Fryer
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA,San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Brian J Roach
- San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | | | - Rachel L Loewy
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Judy M Ford
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA,San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, USA
| | - Daniel H Mathalon
- Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA,San Francisco VA Medical Center, San Francisco, CA, USA,San Francisco VA Medical Center/Psychiatry Service (116D), 4150 Clement Street, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA, Tel: +1 415 221 4810, x23860, Fax: +1 415 750 6622, E-mail:
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245
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Abstract
Sleep spindles are wax and waning brain oscillations at a frequency range of 11-16 Hz, lasting 0.5-2 s, that define non-rapid eye movement sleep stage 2. Over the past few years, several independent studies pointed to a decrease of sleep spindles in schizophrenia. The aim of this review is to contextualize these findings within the growing literature on these oscillations across other neuro-psychiatric disorders. Indeed, spindles reflect the coordinated activity of thalamocortical networks, and their abnormality can be observed in a variety of conditions that disrupt local or global thalamocortical connectivity. Although the broad methodological variability across studies limits the possibility of drawing firm conclusions, impaired spindling activity has been observed in several neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. Despite such lack of specificity, schizophrenia remains the only condition with a typical late adolescence to young adulthood onset in which impaired spindling has been consistently reported. Further research is necessary to clearly define the pathogenetic mechanisms that lead to this deficit and the validity of its widespread use as a clinical biomarker.
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246
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Gao W, Lin W, Grewen K, Gilmore JH. Functional Connectivity of the Infant Human Brain: Plastic and Modifiable. Neuroscientist 2016; 23:169-184. [PMID: 26929236 PMCID: PMC5145769 DOI: 10.1177/1073858416635986] [Citation(s) in RCA: 163] [Impact Index Per Article: 20.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
Infancy is a critical and immensely important period in human brain development. Subtle changes during this stage may be greatly amplified with the unfolding of different developmental processes, exerting far-reaching consequences. Studies of the structure and behavioral manifestations of the infant brain are fruitful. However, the specific functional brain mechanisms that enable the execution of different behaviors remained elusive until the advent of functional connectivity fMRI (fcMRI), which provides an unprecedented opportunity to probe the infant functional brain development in vivo. Since its inception, a burgeoning field of infant brain functional connectivity study has emerged and thrived during the past decade. In this review, we describe (1) findings of normal development of functional connectivity networks and their relationships to behaviors and (2) disruptions of the normative functional connectivity development due to identifiable genetic and/or environmental risk factors during the first 2 years of human life. Technical considerations of infant fcMRI are also provided. It is our hope to consolidate previous findings so that the field can move forward with a clearer picture toward the ultimate goal of fcMRI-based objective methods for early diagnosis/identification of risks and evaluation of early interventions to optimize developing functional connectivity networks in this critical developmental window.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wei Gao
- 1 Biomedical Imaging Research Institute (BIRI), Department of Biomedical Sciences and Imaging, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, USA
| | - Weili Lin
- 2 Department of Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - Karen Grewen
- 3 Departments of Psychiatry, Neurobiology, and Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - John H Gilmore
- 4 Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA
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247
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Jørgensen KN, Nerland S, Norbom LB, Doan NT, Nesvåg R, Mørch-Johnsen L, Haukvik UK, Melle I, Andreassen OA, Westlye LT, Agartz I. Increased MRI-based cortical grey/white-matter contrast in sensory and motor regions in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Psychol Med 2016; 46:1971-1985. [PMID: 27049014 DOI: 10.1017/s0033291716000593] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/14/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share genetic risk factors and one possible illness mechanism is abnormal myelination. T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tissue intensities are sensitive to myelin content. Therefore, the contrast between grey- and white-matter intensities may reflect myelination along the cortical surface. METHOD MRI images were obtained from patients with schizophrenia (n = 214), bipolar disorder (n = 185), and healthy controls (n = 278) and processed in FreeSurfer. The grey/white-matter contrast was computed at each vertex as the difference between average grey-matter intensity (sampled 0-60% into the cortical ribbon) and average white-matter intensity (sampled 0-1.5 mm into subcortical white matter), normalized by their average. Group differences were tested using linear models covarying for age and sex. RESULTS Patients with schizophrenia had increased contrast compared to controls bilaterally in the post- and precentral gyri, the transverse temporal gyri and posterior insulae, and in parieto-occipital regions. In bipolar disorder, increased contrast was primarily localized in the left precentral gyrus. There were no significant differences between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Findings of increased contrast remained after adjusting for cortical area, thickness, and gyrification. We found no association with antipsychotic medication dose. CONCLUSIONS Increased contrast was found in highly myelinated low-level sensory and motor regions in schizophrenia, and to a lesser extent in bipolar disorder. We propose that these findings indicate reduced intracortical myelin. In accordance with the corollary discharge hypothesis, this could cause disinhibition of sensory input, resulting in distorted perceptual processing leading to the characteristic positive symptoms of schizophrenia.
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Affiliation(s)
- K N Jørgensen
- Department of Psychiatric Research,Diakonhjemmet Hospital,Oslo,Norway
| | - S Nerland
- Department of Psychiatric Research,Diakonhjemmet Hospital,Oslo,Norway
| | - L B Norbom
- Department of Psychiatric Research,Diakonhjemmet Hospital,Oslo,Norway
| | - N T Doan
- NORMENT and K. G. Jebsen Center for Psychosis Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo,Norway
| | - R Nesvåg
- Norwegian Institute of Public Health,Oslo,Norway
| | - L Mørch-Johnsen
- Department of Psychiatric Research,Diakonhjemmet Hospital,Oslo,Norway
| | - U K Haukvik
- Department of Psychiatric Research,Diakonhjemmet Hospital,Oslo,Norway
| | - I Melle
- NORMENT and K. G. Jebsen Center for Psychosis Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo,Norway
| | - O A Andreassen
- NORMENT and K. G. Jebsen Center for Psychosis Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo,Norway
| | - L T Westlye
- NORMENT and K. G. Jebsen Center for Psychosis Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo,Norway
| | - I Agartz
- Department of Psychiatric Research,Diakonhjemmet Hospital,Oslo,Norway
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248
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Abstract
Identifying predictors and elucidating the fundamental mechanisms underlying onset of psychosis are critical for the development of targeted preemptive interventions. This article presents a selective review of findings on risk prediction algorithms and potential mechanisms of onset in youth at clinical high-risk for psychosis, focusing principally on recent findings of the North American Prodrome Longitudinal Study (NAPLS). Multivariate models incorporating risk factors from clinical, demographic, neurocognitive, and psychosocial assessments achieve high levels of predictive accuracy when applied to individuals who meet criteria for a prodromal risk syndrome. An individualized risk calculator is available to scale the risk for newly ascertained cases, which could aid in clinical decision making. At risk individuals who convert to psychosis show elevated levels of proinflammatory cytokines, as well as disrupted resting state thalamo-cortical functional connectivity at baseline, compared with those who do not. Further, converters show a steeper rate of gray matter reduction, most prominent in prefrontal cortex, that in turn is predicted by higher levels of inflammatory markers at baseline. Microglia, resident immune cells in the brain, have recently been discovered to influence synaptic plasticity in health and impair plasticity in disease. Processes that modulate microglial activation may represent convergent mechanisms that influence brain dysconnectivity and risk for onset of psychosis and thus may be targetable in developing and testing preventive interventions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tyrone D. Cannon
- *To whom correspondence should be addressed; Department of Psychology, Yale University, PO Box 208205, 2 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06520, US; tel: 203-436-1545, fax: 203-432-5281, e-mail:
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249
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Affiliation(s)
- Dina Bošnjak
- University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče; Bolnicka cesta 32 Zagreb Grad Zagreb Croatia 10000
| | - Ivana Kekin
- Clinical Hospital Centre Zagreb; Department of Psychiatry; Kispaticeva 12 10 000 Zagreb Croatia
| | - Joanne Hew
- St Mary's Hospital; Department of Medicine; Praed Street London UK W2 1NY
| | - Martina Rojnic Kuzman
- Clinical Hospital Centre Zagreb; Department of Psychiatry; Kispaticeva 12 10 000 Zagreb Croatia
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250
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Cadenhead KS, Mirzakhanian H. A Case of Attenuated Psychosis Syndrome: A Broad Differential Diagnosis Requires Broad-Spectrum Treatment. Am J Psychiatry 2016; 173:321-9. [PMID: 27035531 PMCID: PMC6984191 DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2015.15060789] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
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