Decreased Nucleus Accumbens Connectivity at Rest in Medication-Free Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Background. Patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) experience deficiencies in reward processing. The investigation of the reward circuit and its essential connectivity may further clarify the pathogenesis of OCD. Methods. The current research was designed to analyze the nucleus accumbens (NAc) functional connectivity at rest in medicine-free patients with OCD. Forty medication-free patients and 38 gender-, education-, and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited for resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Seed-based functional connectivity (FC) was used to analyze the data. LIBSVM (library for support vector machines) was designed to identify whether altered FC could be applied to differentiate OCD. Results. Patients with OCD showed remarkably decreased FC values between the left NAc and the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and bilateral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and between the right NAc and the left OFC at rest in the reward circuit. Moreover, decreased left NAc-bilateral MPFC connectivity can be deemed as a potential biomarker to differentiate OCD from HCs with a sensitivity of 80.00% and a specificity of 76.32%. Conclusion. The current results emphasize the importance of the reward circuit in the pathogenesis of OCD.

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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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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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Abnormal corticostriatal-limbic functional connectivity in obsessive–compulsive disorder during reward processing and resting-state

NeuroImage Clinical ◽

10.1016/j.nicl.2013.06.013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 27-38 ◽

Cited By ~ 67

Author(s):

Wi Hoon Jung ◽

Do-Hyung Kang ◽

Euitae Kim ◽

Kyung Soon Shin ◽

Joon Hwan Jang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Resting State ◽

Reward Processing ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder

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Altered resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Psychological Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0033291718001915 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 49 (07) ◽

pp. 1156-1165 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Tingting Xu ◽

Qing Zhao ◽

Pei Wang ◽

Qing Fan ◽

Jue Chen ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Executive Control ◽

Clinical Symptoms ◽

Emotion Processing ◽

Affective Processing ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Magnetic Resonance Imaging Mri ◽

The Right

AbstractBackgroundThe role of the cerebellum in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has drawn increasing attention. However, the functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortex has not been investigated in OCD, nor has the relationship between such functional connectivity and clinical symptoms.MethodsA total of 27 patients with OCD and 21 healthy controls (HCs) matched on age, sex and education underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Seed-based connectivity analyses were performed to examine differences in cerebellar-cerebral connectivity in patients with OCD compared with HCs. Associations between functional connectivity and clinical features in OCD were analyzed.ResultsCompared with HCs, OCD patients showed significantly decreased cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in executive control and emotion processing networks. Within the OCD group, decreased functional connectivity in an executive network spanning the right cerebellar Crus I and the inferior parietal lobule was positively correlated with symptom severity, and decreased connectivity in an emotion processing network spanning the left cerebellar lobule VI and the lingual gyrus was negatively correlated with illness duration.ConclusionsAltered functional connectivity between the cerebellum and cerebral networks involved in cognitive-affective processing in patients with OCD provides further evidence for the involvement of the cerebellum in the pathophysiology of OCD, and is consistent with impairment in executive control and emotion regulation in this condition.

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Aberrant Resting-State Cerebellar-Cerebral Functional Connectivity in Unmedicated Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Frontiers in Psychiatry ◽

10.3389/fpsyt.2021.659616 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Keitaro Murayama ◽

Hirofumi Tomiyama ◽

Sae Tsuruta ◽

Aikana Ohono ◽

Mingi Kang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Functional Connectivity ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽

Resting State ◽

Large Scale ◽

Neural Mechanism ◽

Obsessive Compulsive ◽

Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms ◽

Compulsive Disorder ◽

Magnetic Imaging ◽

The Right

Background: Although abnormality of cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity at rest in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been hypothesized, only a few studies have investigated the neural mechanism. To verify the findings of previous studies, a large sample of patients with OCD was studied because OCD shows possible heterogeneity.Methods: Forty-seven medication-free patients with OCD and 62 healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state functional magnetic imaging scans. Seed-based connectivity was examined to investigate differences in cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in OCD patients compared with HCs. Correlations between functional connectivity and the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptoms were analyzed.Results: In OCD, we found significantly increased functional connectivity between the right lobule VI and the left precuneus, which is a component of the default mode network (DMN), compared to HCs. However, there was no correlation between the connectivity of the right lobule VI-left precuneus and obsessive-compulsive severity.Conclusions: These findings suggest that altered functional connectivity between the cerebellum and DMN might cause changes in intrinsic large-scale brain networks related to the traits of OCD.

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