Sheffield Julia M, Repovs Grega, Harms Michael P, Carter Cameron S, Gold James M, MacDonald Angus W, Daniel Ragland J, Silverstein Steven M, Godwin Douglass, Barch Deanna M
Washington University in St Louis, Department of Psychology, USA.
University of Ljubljana, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Slovenia.
Neuropsychologia. 2015 Jul;73:82-93. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.05.006. Epub 2015 May 13.
Growing evidence suggests that coordinated activity within specific functional brain networks supports cognitive ability, and that abnormalities in brain connectivity may underlie cognitive deficits observed in neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia. Two functional networks, the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and cingulo-opercular network (CON), are hypothesized to support top-down control of executive functioning, and have therefore emerged as potential drivers of cognitive impairment in disease-states. Graph theoretic analyses of functional connectivity data can characterize network topology, allowing the relationships between cognitive ability and network integrity to be examined. In the current study we applied graph analysis to pseudo-resting state data in 54 healthy subjects and 46 schizophrenia patients, and measured overall cognitive ability as the shared variance in performance from tasks of episodic memory, verbal memory, processing speed, goal maintenance, and visual integration. We found that, across all participants, cognitive ability was significantly positively associated with the local and global efficiency of the whole brain, FPN, and CON, but not with the efficiency of a comparison network, the auditory network. Additionally, the participation coefficient of the right anterior insula, a major hub within the CON, significantly predicted cognition, and this relationship was independent of CON global efficiency. Surprisingly, we did not observe strong evidence for group differences in any of our network metrics. These data suggest that functionally efficient task control networks support better cognitive ability in both health and schizophrenia, and that the right anterior insula may be a particularly important hub for successful cognitive performance across both health and disease.
越来越多的证据表明，特定功能脑网络内的协同活动支持认知能力，并且脑连接异常可能是神经精神疾病（如精神分裂症）中观察到的认知缺陷的基础。两个功能网络，额顶叶网络（FPN）和扣带回-脑岛网络（CON），被假设为支持执行功能的自上而下控制，因此已成为疾病状态下认知障碍的潜在驱动因素。功能连接数据的图论分析可以表征网络拓扑结构，从而能够研究认知能力与网络完整性之间的关系。在当前研究中，我们将图分析应用于54名健康受试者和46名精神分裂症患者的伪静息态数据，并将整体认知能力测量为情景记忆、言语记忆、处理速度、目标维持和视觉整合任务表现中的共同方差。我们发现，在所有参与者中，认知能力与全脑、FPN和CON的局部和全局效率显著正相关，但与比较网络听觉网络的效率无关。此外，CON内的主要枢纽右侧前岛叶的参与系数显著预测认知，并且这种关系独立于CON全局效率。令人惊讶的是，我们没有观察到任何网络指标存在组间差异的有力证据。这些数据表明，功能高效的任务控制网络在健康和精神分裂症中均支持更好的认知能力，并且右侧前岛叶可能是健康和疾病状态下成功认知表现的一个特别重要的枢纽。
