College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Beijing Anding Hospital of Capital Medical University, Beijing Key Laboratory for mental disorders, Center of Schizphrenia, Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing 10088, China.
J Affect Disord. 2018 Feb;227:391-397. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2017.11.026. Epub 2017 Nov 8.
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is part of the limbic system of the brain. It is a bridge between attentional and emotional processing, which is responsible for the integration of visceral, attentional, and affective information. Lesioning of the ACC, which produces striking changes, is used to treat major depression disorder (MDD). Moreover, the brain dynamically integrates and coordinates functions of its different subparts to realize its cognitive capability. Hence, the spatio-temporal community distribution of the ACC is necessary to completely understand MDD.
First, community structure detection was used to reveal the community distribution of brain regions. Thereafter, the flexibility, i.e., the frequency of community assignment changes of the ACC in such a community, and the module allegiance matrix (MAM) between the ACC and other brain regions, were analyzed.
Our analysis demonstrated significant differences in the distribution of community assignment and flexibility of the ACC in MDD, compared to healthy controls (HC). The results also showed that the pairwise values of the MAMs between the ACC and the amygdala, insula, precuneus, and thalamus were significantly lower in patients with MDD compared to those in HC.
The data collected is subject to patient-specific noise because (1) the medication effect varies from patient to patient, and (2) with most fMRI studies, the thoughts of the participants during imaging are difficult to control.
ACC exhibits abnormal flexibility in community structures in MDD. The pairwise abnormal entries in the MAM for the ACC with four other brain regions, i.e., amygdala, insula, precuneus, and thalamus, quantified the role played by the ACC in MDD.
前扣带皮层（ACC）是大脑边缘系统的一部分。它是注意和情绪处理之间的桥梁，负责整合内脏、注意和情感信息。ACC 的病变产生了显著的变化，被用于治疗重度抑郁症（MDD）。此外，大脑动态地整合和协调其不同部分的功能，以实现其认知能力。因此，为了完全了解 MDD，有必要对 ACC 的时空社区分布进行研究。
首先，采用社区结构检测来揭示脑区的社区分布。然后，分析了 ACC 的社区分配的灵活性，即其在社区中的分配变化的频率，以及 ACC 与其他脑区之间的模块隶属矩阵（MAM）。
与健康对照组（HC）相比，我们的分析表明，MDD 患者的 ACC 社区分配和灵活性分布存在显著差异。结果还表明，MDD 患者的 ACC 与杏仁核、岛叶、楔前叶和丘脑之间的 MAMs 的成对值明显低于 HC。
由于（1）药物的作用因患者而异，（2）与大多数 fMRI 研究一样，参与者在成像期间的想法难以控制，因此收集的数据受到患者特定的噪声影响。
ACC 在 MDD 中表现出异常的社区结构灵活性。ACC 与其他四个脑区（即杏仁核、岛叶、楔前叶和丘脑）之间的 MAM 异常条目量化了 ACC 在 MDD 中的作用。
