Li Dandan, Tang Wenjing, Yan Ting, Zhang Nan, Xiang Jie, Niu Yan, Wang Bin
College of Information and Computer, Taiyuan University of Technology, Shanxi, China.
School of Mechanical, Electrical and Information Engineering, Shandong University at Weihai, Shandong, China.
Brain Imaging Behav. 2021 Apr;15(2):819-832. doi: 10.1007/s11682-020-00292-9.
Hemispheric lateralization is a prominent feature of the human brain and is grounded into intra- and inter-hemispheric white matter (WM) connections. However, disruptions in hemispheric lateralization involving both intra- and inter-hemispheric WM connections in schizophrenia is still unclear. Hence, a quantitative measure of the hemispheric lateralization of intra- and inter-hemispheric WM connections could provide new insights into schizophrenia. This work performed diffusion tensor imaging on 50 patients and 58 matched healthy controls. Using graph theory, the global and nodal efficiencies were computed for both intra- and inter-hemispheric networks. We found that patients with schizophrenia showed significantly decrease in both global and nodal efficiency of hemispheric networks relative to healthy controls. Specially, deficits in intra-hemispheric integration and inter-hemispheric communication were revealed in frontal and temporal regions for schizophrenia. We also found disrupted hemispheric asymmetries in brain regions associated with emotion, memory, and visual processes for schizophrenia. Moreover, abnormal hemispheric asymmetry of nodal efficiency was significantly correlated with the symptom of the patients. Our finding indicated that the hemispheric WM lateralization of intra- and inter-hemispheric connections could serve as a potential imaging biomarker for schizophrenia.
半球偏侧化是人类大脑的一个显著特征，它基于半球内和半球间的白质（WM）连接。然而，精神分裂症中涉及半球内和半球间WM连接的半球偏侧化破坏仍不清楚。因此，对半球内和半球间WM连接的半球偏侧化进行定量测量可为精神分裂症提供新的见解。这项研究对50名患者和58名匹配的健康对照者进行了扩散张量成像。使用图论，计算了半球内和半球间网络的全局和节点效率。我们发现，与健康对照者相比，精神分裂症患者半球网络的全局和节点效率均显著降低。特别地，在精神分裂症患者的额叶和颞叶区域发现了半球内整合和半球间通信的缺陷。我们还发现，精神分裂症患者在与情绪、记忆和视觉过程相关的脑区存在半球不对称性破坏。此外，节点效率的异常半球不对称性与患者的症状显著相关。我们的研究结果表明，半球内和半球间连接的半球WM偏侧化可作为精神分裂症的潜在影像学生物标志物。
