Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre - CUBRIC, Cardiff, United Kingdom; School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre - CUBRIC, Cardiff, United Kingdom.
Biol Psychiatry. 2018 Dec 1;84(11):803-809. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2018.07.023. Epub 2018 Aug 7.
Alterations in functional connectivity between the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and frontal cortices have been previously associated with the presence of psychiatric syndromes, including bipolar disorder (BD). Whether these alterations are a consequence or a risk factor for mental disorders remains unresolved.
This study included 35 patients with BD, 30 nonaffected siblings of patients with BD, and 23 healthy control subjects to probe functional connectivity at rest between NAcc and the rest of the brain in a cross-sectional design. Blood oxygen level-dependent time series at rest from NAcc were used as seed region in a voxelwise correlational analysis. The strength of the correlations found was compared across groups after Fisher's Z transformation.
We found increased functional connectivity between the NAcc and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex-comprising mainly the subgenual anterior cingulate-in patients compared with healthy control subjects. Participants at increased genetic risk but yet resilient-nonaffected siblings-showed functional connectivity values midway between the former two groups.
Our results are indicative of the potential for the connectivity between NAcc and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex to represent an endophenotype for BD.
伏隔核（NAcc）与额叶皮质之间功能连接的改变先前与包括双相情感障碍（BD）在内的精神综合征的存在相关。这些改变是精神障碍的后果还是危险因素仍未解决。
本研究包括 35 名 BD 患者、30 名 BD 患者无患病的兄弟姐妹和 23 名健康对照，以在横断面设计中探测 NAcc 与大脑其余部分在静息状态下的功能连接。使用 NAcc 静息状态下的血氧水平依赖时间序列作为体素相关分析的种子区域。在进行 Fisher Z 变换后，比较了各组之间发现的相关性的强度。
与健康对照组相比，我们发现患者的 NAcc 与腹内侧前额叶之间的功能连接增加，主要包括扣带回前皮质的下部分。具有较高遗传风险但仍具有弹性的参与者——无患病的兄弟姐妹——表现出的功能连接值介于前两组之间。
我们的结果表明，NAcc 与腹内侧前额叶之间的连接可能代表 BD 的一个表型。
