Parvaz Muhammad A, Maloney Thomas, Moeller Scott J, Malaker Pias, Konova Anna B, Alia-Klein Nelly, Goldstein Rita Z
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA ; Department of Psychology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11790, USA.
Neuroimage Clin. 2014 Jun 2;5:10-8. doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2014.05.011. eCollection 2014.
Functional neuroimaging studies have long implicated the mid-cingulate cortex (MCC) in conflict monitoring, but it is not clear whether its structural integrity (i.e., the gray matter volume) influences its conflict monitoring function. In this multimodal study, we used T1-weighted MRI scans as well as event-related potentials (ERPs) to test whether the MCC gray matter volume is associated with the electrocortical marker (i.e., No-go N200 ERP component) of conflict monitoring in healthy individuals. The specificity of such a relationship in health was determined in two ways: by (A) acquiring the same data from individuals with cocaine use disorder (CUD), known to have deficits in executive function including behavioral monitoring; and (B) acquiring the P300 ERP component that is linked with attention allocation and not specifically with conflict monitoring. Twenty-five (39.1 ± 8.4 years; 8 females) healthy individuals and 25 (42.7 ± 5.9 years; 6 females) individuals with CUD underwent a rewarded Go/No-go task during which the ERP data was collected, and they also underwent a structural MRI scan. The whole brain regression analysis showed a significant correlation between MCC structural integrity and the well-known ERP measure of conflict monitoring (N200, but not the P300) in healthy individuals, which was absent in CUD who were characterized by reduced MCC gray matter volume, N200 abnormalities as well as reduced task accuracy. In individuals with CUD instead, the N200 amplitude was associated with drug addiction symptomatology. These results show that the integrity of MCC volume is directly associated with the electrocortical correlates of conflict monitoring in healthy individuals, and such an association breaks down in psychopathologies that impact these brain processes. Taken together, this MCC-N200 association may serve as a biomarker of improved behavioral monitoring processes in diseased populations.
长期以来，功能性神经影像学研究一直表明扣带前回中部（MCC）与冲突监测有关，但尚不清楚其结构完整性（即灰质体积）是否会影响其冲突监测功能。在这项多模态研究中，我们使用T1加权磁共振成像扫描以及事件相关电位（ERP）来测试MCC灰质体积是否与健康个体冲突监测的脑电标记物（即失匹配负波N200 ERP成分）相关。通过两种方式确定了这种关系在健康状态下的特异性：（A）从已知存在包括行为监测在内的执行功能缺陷的可卡因使用障碍（CUD）个体获取相同数据；（B）获取与注意力分配相关而非专门与冲突监测相关的P300 ERP成分。25名（39.1±8.4岁；8名女性）健康个体和25名（42.7±5.9岁；6名女性）CUD个体进行了奖励式的Go/No-go任务，在此期间收集ERP数据，并且他们还接受了结构磁共振成像扫描。全脑回归分析显示，健康个体的MCC结构完整性与冲突监测的著名ERP指标（N200，而非P300）之间存在显著相关性；而在以MCC灰质体积减少、N200异常以及任务准确性降低为特征的CUD个体中，这种相关性不存在。相反，在CUD个体中，N200波幅与药物成瘾症状相关。这些结果表明MCC体积的完整性与健康个体冲突监测的脑电相关性直接相关，而这种关联在影响这些脑过程的精神病理学中会被破坏。综上所述，这种MCC - N200关联可能作为患病群体中行为监测过程改善的生物标志物。
