NORMENT, KG Jebsen Centre for Psychosis Research, Division of Mental Health and Addiction, Oslo University Hospital & Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Department of Child Development and Mental Health, Division of Mental Health, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2018 Jun;12(3):640-652. doi: 10.1007/s11682-017-9714-y.
The thalamus is a highly connected subcortical structure that relays and integrates sensory and cortical information, which is critical for coherent and accurate perceptual awareness and cognition. Thalamic dysfunction is a classical finding in schizophrenia (SZ), and resting-state functional MRI has implicated somatomotor and frontal lobe thalamic dysconnectivity. However, it remains unclear whether these findings generalize to different psychotic disorders, are confined to specific thalamic sub-regions, and how they relate to structural thalamic alterations. Within-thalamic and thalamo-cortical functional connectivity was assessed using resting-state functional MRI data obtained from patients with SZ (n = 96), bipolar disorder (BD, n = 57), and healthy controls (HC, n = 280). Further, we used thalamic sub-regions as seeds to investigate specific cortical connectivity patterns, and performed structural analyses of thalamic volume and shape. Results showed reduced within-thalamic connectivity and thalamo-frontoparietal coupling in SZ and increased thalamo-somatomotor connectivity in BD. One thalamic sub-region showed increased sensory connectivity in SZ and eight sub-regions showed reductions with frontal and posterior areas. Reduced gray matter and shape abnormalities were found in frontal-projecting regions in both SZ and BD, but did not seem to explain reduced functional connectivity. Aberrant thalamo-cortical connectivity patterns in SZ and BD supports the notion of the thalamus as a key structure in the functional connectome across the psychosis spectrum, and the frontal and somatomotor anatomical distribution is in line with the characteristic cognitive and perceptual symptoms in psychotic disorders.
丘脑是一个高度连接的皮质下结构,它传递和整合感觉和皮质信息,这对于连贯和准确的感知意识和认知至关重要。丘脑功能障碍是精神分裂症(SZ)的经典发现,静息态功能磁共振成像已经暗示了躯体感觉和额叶丘脑连接障碍。然而,目前尚不清楚这些发现是否适用于不同的精神病障碍,是否仅限于特定的丘脑亚区,以及它们与结构丘脑改变的关系。使用来自 SZ 患者(n=96)、双相情感障碍(BD,n=57)和健康对照(HC,n=280)的静息态功能磁共振成像数据评估了丘脑内和丘脑皮质功能连接。此外,我们使用丘脑亚区作为种子来研究特定的皮质连接模式,并对丘脑体积和形状进行了结构分析。结果显示,SZ 患者的丘脑内连接和丘脑-额顶叶连接减少,BD 患者的丘脑-躯体感觉连接增加。一个丘脑亚区在 SZ 中显示出感觉连接增加,八个亚区与额区和后区的连接减少。SZ 和 BD 中的额皮质投射区都发现了灰质减少和形状异常,但似乎不能解释功能连接的减少。SZ 和 BD 中异常的丘脑皮质连接模式支持了丘脑作为精神病谱中功能连接组关键结构的观点,并且额和躯体感觉的解剖分布与精神病障碍的特征性认知和知觉症状一致。