Abstract:
A large body of research has shown that schizophrenia patients demonstrate increased brain structural aging. Although this process may be coupled with aberrant changes in intrinsic functional architecture of the brain, they remain understudied. We hypothesized that there are brain regions whose whole-brain functional connectivity at rest is differently associated with brain structural aging in schizophrenia patients compared to healthy controls. Eighty-four male schizophrenia patients and eighty-six male healthy controls underwent structural MRI and resting-state fMRI. The brain-predicted age difference (b-PAD) was a measure of brain structural aging. Resting-state fMRI was applied to obtain global correlation (GCOR) maps comprising voxelwise values of the strength and sign of functional connectivity of a given voxel with the rest of the brain. Schizophrenia patients had higher b-PAD compared to controls (mean between-group difference + 2.9 years). Greater b-PAD in schizophrenia patients, compared to controls, was associated with lower whole-brain functional connectivity of a region in frontal orbital cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, Heschl\'s Gyrus, plana temporale and polare, insula, and opercular cortices of the right hemisphere (rFTI). According to post hoc seed-based correlation analysis, decrease of functional connectivity with the posterior cingulate gyrus, left superior temporal cortices, as well as right angular gyrus/superior lateral occipital cortex has mainly driven the results. Lower functional connectivity of the rFTI was related to worse verbal working memory and language production. Our findings demonstrate that well-established frontotemporal functional abnormalities in schizophrenia are related to increased brain structural aging.
摘要:
大量研究表明,精神分裂症患者表现出大脑结构老化的增加。尽管这个过程可能与大脑内在功能结构的异常变化有关,他们仍然被研究不足。我们假设,与健康对照组相比,精神分裂症患者在休息时的全脑功能连接与大脑结构衰老的相关程度不同。84名男性精神分裂症患者和86名男性健康对照者接受了结构MRI和静息状态fMRI。大脑预测的年龄差异(b-PAD)是大脑结构老化的量度。应用静息状态fMRI来获得全局相关(GCOR)图,其包括给定体素与大脑其余部分的功能连通性的强度和符号的体素方向值。与对照组相比,精神分裂症患者的b-PAD更高(平均组间差异2.9年)。精神分裂症患者中更大的b-PAD,与对照组相比,与额叶眶皮质区域的全脑功能连通性较低有关,额下回,Heschl\'sGyrus,临时平面和波拉,脑岛,和右半球的核皮质(rFTI)。根据基于种子的事后相关性分析,与后扣带回的功能连接减少,左颞上皮质,以及右角回/枕上外侧皮层主要驱动了结果。rFTI的功能连通性较低与言语工作记忆和语言产生较差有关。我们的发现表明,精神分裂症中公认的额颞叶功能异常与大脑结构老化增加有关。