Altered Functional Connectivity Strength at Rest in Medication-Free Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Background. Previous studies explored the whole-brain functional connectome using the degree approach in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, whether the altered degree values can be used to discriminate OCD from healthy controls (HCs) remains unclear. Methods. A total of 40 medication-free patients with OCD and 38 HCs underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scan. Data were analyzed with the degree approach and a support vector machine (SVM) classifier. Results. Patients with OCD showed increased degree values in the left thalamus and left cerebellum Crus I and decreased degree values in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, right precuneus, and left postcentral gyrus. SVM classification analysis indicated that the increased degree value in the left thalamus is a marker of OCD, with an acceptable accuracy of 88.46%, sensitivity of 87.50%, and specificity of 89.47%. Conclusion. Altered degree values within and outside the cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) circuit may cocontribute to the pathophysiology of OCD. Increased degree values of the left thalamus can be used as a future marker for OCD understanding-classification.

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Disrupted Asymmetry of Inter- and Intra-Hemispheric Functional Connectivity at Rest in Medication-Free Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Frontiers in Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnins.2021.634557 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 ◽

Author(s):

Cuicui Jia ◽

Yangpan Ou ◽

Yunhui Chen ◽

Jidong Ma ◽

Chuang Zhan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Cingulate Cortex ◽

Posterior Cingulate Cortex ◽

Support Vector ◽

Precentral Gyrus ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Potential Biomarker ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal

Disrupted functional asymmetry of cerebral hemispheres may be altered in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, little is known about whether anomalous brain asymmetries originate from inter- and/or intra-hemispheric functional connectivity (FC) at rest in OCD. In this study, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging was applied to 40 medication-free patients with OCD and 38 gender-, age-, and education-matched healthy controls (HCs). Data were analyzed using the parameter of asymmetry (PAS) and support vector machine methods. Patients with OCD showed significantly increased PAS in the left posterior cingulate cortex, left precentral gyrus/postcentral gyrus, and right inferior occipital gyrus and decreased PAS in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), bilateral middle cingulate cortex (MCC), left inferior parietal lobule, and left cerebellum Crus I. A negative correlation was found between decreased PAS in the left DLPFC and Yale–Brown Obsessive-compulsive Scale compulsive behavior scores in the patients. Furthermore, decreased PAS in the bilateral MCC could be used to distinguish OCD from HCs with a sensitivity of 87.50%, an accuracy of 88.46%, and a specificity of 89.47%. These results highlighted the contribution of disrupted asymmetry of intra-hemispheric FC within and outside the cortico-striato-thalamocortical circuits at rest in the pathophysiology of OCD, and reduced intra-hemispheric FC in the bilateral MCC may serve as a potential biomarker to classify individuals with OCD from HCs.

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2.30 PREDICTING OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER TREATMENT RESPONSE IN PEDIATRIC PATIENTS USING STRUCTURAL NEUROIMAGING CORRELATES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN SIMPLE LINEAR REGRESSION AND SUPPORT VECTOR REGRESSION

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/j.jaac.2016.09.096 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 55 (10) ◽

pp. S130

Author(s):

Edoardo F. Vattimo ◽

Vivian B. Barros ◽

Guaraci Requena ◽

Joao R. Sato ◽

Marcelo Camargo Batistuzzo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Linear Regression ◽

Support Vector Regression ◽

Treatment Response ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Pediatric Patients ◽

Support Vector ◽

Simple Linear Regression ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Disorder Treatment

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Defining data-driven subgroups of obsessive–compulsive disorder with different treatment responses based on resting-state functional connectivity

Translational Psychiatry ◽

10.1038/s41398-020-01045-4 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Seoyeon Kwak ◽

Minah Kim ◽

Taekwan Kim ◽

Yoobin Kwak ◽

Sanghoon Oh ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Treatment Response ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Resting State ◽

Predictive Biomarkers ◽

Support Vector ◽

Resting State Functional Connectivity ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Treatment Responses

Abstract Characterization of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), like other psychiatric disorders, suffers from heterogeneities in its symptoms and therapeutic responses, and identification of more homogeneous subgroups may help to resolve the heterogeneity. We aimed to identify the OCD subgroups based on resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) and to explore their differences in treatment responses via a multivariate approach. From the resting-state functional MRI data of 107 medication-free OCD patients and 110 healthy controls (HCs), we selected rsFC features, which discriminated OCD patients from HCs via support vector machine (SVM) analyses. With the selected brain features, we subdivided OCD patients into subgroups using hierarchical clustering analyses. We identified 35 rsFC features that achieved a high sensitivity (82.74%) and specificity (76.29%) in SVM analyses. The OCD patients were subdivided into two subgroups, which did not show significant differences in their demographic and clinical backgrounds. However, one of the OCD subgroups demonstrated more impaired rsFC that was involved either within the default mode network (DMN) or between DMN brain regions and other network regions. This subgroup also showed both lower improvements in symptom severity in the 16-week follow-up visit and lower responder percentage than the other subgroup. Our results highlight that not only abnormalities within the DMN but also aberrant rsFC between the DMN and other networks may contribute to the treatment response and support the importance of these neurobiological alterations in OCD patients. We suggest that abnormalities in these connectivity may play predictive biomarkers of treatment response, and aid to build more optimal treatment strategies.

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Brain Activation During Response Interference in Twins Discordant or Concordant for Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms

Twin Research and Human Genetics ◽

10.1017/thg.2012.2 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 15 (3) ◽

pp. 372-383 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Anouk den Braber ◽

Dennis van ‘t Ent ◽

Danielle C. Cath ◽

Dick J. Veltman ◽

Dorret I. Boomsma ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Inhibitory Control ◽

Brain Activation ◽

Monozygotic Twin ◽

Anterior Cingulate ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms ◽

Response Interference ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal

One of the core behavioral features associated with obsessive compulsive symptomatology is the inability to inhibit thoughts and/or behaviors. Neuroimaging studies have indicated abnormalities in frontostriatal and dorsolateral prefrontal – anterior cingulate circuits during inhibitory control in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder compared with controls. In the present study, task performance and brain activation during Stroop color-word and Flanker interference were compared within monozygotic twin pairs discordant for obsessive compulsive symptoms and between groups of pairs scoring very low or very high on obsessive compulsive symptoms, in order to examine the differential impact of non-shared environmental versus genetic risk factors for obsessive compulsive symptomatology on inhibitory control related functional brain activation. Although performance was intact, brain activation during inhibition of distracting information differed between obsessive compulsive symptom high-scoring compared to low-scoring subjects. Regions affected in the discordant group (e.g., temporal and anterior cingulate gyrus) were partly different from those observed to be affected in the concordant groups (e.g., parietal gyrus and thalamus). A robust increase in dorsolateral prefrontal activity during response interference was observed in both the high-scoring twins of the discordant sample and the high-scoring twins of the concordant sample, marking this structure as a possible key region for disturbances in inhibitory control in obsessive compulsive disorder.

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Classification of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder by EEG Complexity and Hemispheric Dependency Measurements

International Journal of Neural Systems ◽

10.1142/s0129065715500100 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 25 (03) ◽

pp. 1550010 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Serap Aydin ◽

Nafiz Arica ◽

Emrah Ergul ◽

Oğuz Tan

Keyword(s):

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Single Channel ◽

Electrode Placement ◽

Permutation Entropy ◽

Support Vector ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Validation Data ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Eyes Closed

In the present study, both single channel electroencephalography (EEG) complexity and two channel interhemispheric dependency measurements have newly been examined for classification of patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) and controls by using support vector machine classifiers. Three embedding entropy measurements (approximate entropy, sample entropy, permutation entropy (PermEn)) are used to estimate single channel EEG complexity for 19-channel eyes closed cortical measurements. Mean coherence and mutual information are examined to measure the level of interhemispheric dependency in frequency and statistical domain, respectively for eight distinct electrode pairs placed on the scalp with respect to the international 10–20 electrode placement system. All methods are applied to short EEG segments of 2 s. The classification performance is measured 20 times with different 2-fold cross-validation data for both single channel complexity features (19 features) and interhemispheric dependency features (eight features). The highest classification accuracy of 85 ±5.2% is provided by PermEn at prefrontal regions of the brain. Even if the classification success do not provided by other methods as high as PermEn, the clear differences between patients and controls at prefrontal regions can also be obtained by using other methods except coherence. In conclusion, OCD, defined as illness of orbitofronto-striatal structures [Beucke et al., JAMA Psychiatry 70 (2013) 619–629; Cavedini et al., Psychiatry Res. 78 (1998) 21–28; Menzies et al., Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 32(3) (2008) 525–549], is caused by functional abnormalities in the pre-frontal regions. Particularly, patients are characterized by lower EEG complexity at both pre-frontal regions and right fronto-temporal locations. Our results are compatible with imaging studies that define OCD as a sub group of anxiety disorders exhibited a decreased complexity (such as anorexia nervosa [Toth et al., Int. J. Psychophysiol. 51(3) (2004) 253–260] and panic disorder [Bob et al., Physiol. Res. 55 (2006) S113–S119]).

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Anterior limb of the internal capsule tractography: relationship with capsulotomy outcomes in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry ◽

10.1136/jnnp-2020-323062 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. jnnp-2020-323062

Author(s):

Chencheng Zhang ◽

Seung-Goo Kim ◽

Jun Li ◽

Yingying Zhang ◽

Qiming Lv ◽

...

Keyword(s):

White Matter ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Critical Role ◽

Internal Capsule ◽

Subcortical Structures ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Prefrontal Cortical ◽

Subcortical Region ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal

ObjectivesSurgical procedures targeting the anterior limb of the internal capsule (aLIC) can be effective in patients with selected treatment-refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The aLIC consists of white-matter tracts connecting cortical and subcortical structures and show a topographical organisation. Here we assess how aLIC streamlines are affected in OCD compared with healthy controls (HCs) and which streamlines are related with post-capsulotomy improvement.MethodsDiffusion-weighted MRI was used to compare white-matter microstructure via the aLIC between patients with OCD (n=100, 40 women, mean of age 31.8 years) and HCs (n=88, 39 women, mean of age 29.6 years). For each individual, the fractional anisotropy (FA) and streamline counts were calculated for each white-matter fibre bundle connecting a functionally defined prefrontal and subcortical region. Correlations between tractography measures and pre-capsulotomy and post-capsulotomy clinical outcomes (in obsessive-compulsive, anxiety and depression scores 6 months after surgery) were assessed in 41 patients with OCD.ResultsHierarchical clustering dendrograms show an aLIC organisation clustering lateral and dissociating ventral and dorsal prefrontal–thalamic streamlines, findings highly relevant to surgical targeting. Compared with HCs, patients with OCD had lower aLIC FA across multiple prefrontal cortical–subcortical regions (p<0.0073, false discovery rate-adjusted). Greater streamline counts of the dorsolateral prefrontal–thalamic tracts in patients with OCD predicted greater post-capsulotomy obsessive-compulsive improvement (p=0.016). In contrast, greater counts of the dorsal cingulate–thalamic streamlines predicted surgical outcomes mediated by depressive and anxiety improvements.ConclusionsThese findings shed light on the critical role of the aLIC in OCD and may potentially contribute towards precision targeting to optimise outcomes in OCD.

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Fronto-striatal structures related with model-based control as an endophenotype for obsessive–compulsive disorder

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-91179-2 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Meltem I. Kasal ◽

Lutfullah Besiroglu ◽

Nabi Zorlu ◽

Nur Dikmeer ◽

Aslıhan Bilge ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Reaction Time ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Model Based Control ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Model Based ◽

Model Free ◽

Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽

Model Free Control

AbstractRecent theories suggest a shift from model-based goal-directed to model-free habitual decision-making in obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). However, it is yet unclear, whether this shift in the decision process is heritable. We investigated 32 patients with OCD, 27 unaffected siblings (SIBs) and 31 healthy controls (HCs) using the two-step task. We computed behavioral and reaction time analyses and fitted a computational model to assess the balance between model-based and model-free control. 80 subjects also underwent structural imaging. We observed a significant ordered effect for the shift towards model-free control in the direction OCD > SIB > HC in our computational parameter of interest. However less directed analyses revealed no shift towards model-free control in OCDs. Nonetheless, we found evidence for reduced model-based control in OCDs compared to HCs and SIBs via 2nd stage reaction time analyses. In this measure SIBs also showed higher levels of model-based control than HCs. Across all subjects these effects were associated with the surface area of the left medial/right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Moreover, correlations between bilateral putamen/right caudate volumes and these effects varied as a function of group: they were negative in SIBs and OCDs, but positive in HCs. Associations between fronto-striatal regions and model-based reaction time effects point to a potential endophenotype for OCD.

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