Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Department of Bioengineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Psychol Med. 2022 Sep;52(12):2299-2308. doi: 10.1017/S0033291720004201. Epub 2020 Nov 23.
Cognitive impairments, which contribute to the profound functional deficits observed in psychotic disorders, have found to be associated with abnormalities in trial-level cognitive control. However, neural tasks operate within the context of sustained cognitive states, which can be assessed with 'background connectivity' following the removal of task effects. To date, little is known about the integrity of brain processes supporting the maintenance of a cognitive state in individuals with psychotic disorders. Thus, here we examine background connectivity during executive processing in a cohort of participants with first-episode psychosis (FEP).
The following fMRI study examined background connectivity of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), during working memory engagement in a group of 43 patients with FEP, relative to 35 healthy controls (HC). Findings were also examined in relation to measures of executive function.
The FEP group relative to HC showed significantly lower background DLPFC connectivity with bilateral superior parietal lobule (SPL) and left inferior parietal lobule. Background connectivity between DLPFC and SPL was also positively associated with overall cognition across all subjects and in our FEP group. In comparison, resting-state frontoparietal connectivity did not differ between groups and was not significantly associated with overall cognition, suggesting that psychosis-related alterations in executive networks only emerged during states of goal-oriented behavior.
These results provide novel evidence indicating while frontoparietal connectivity at rest appears intact in psychosis, when engaged during a cognitive state, it is impaired possibly undermining cognitive control capacities in FEP.
认知障碍是精神疾病中观察到的严重功能缺陷的原因，研究发现其与试验级认知控制的异常有关。然而，神经任务是在持续的认知状态下进行的，可以通过任务效应消除后的“背景连通性”来评估。迄今为止，对于精神障碍个体维持认知状态的大脑过程的完整性知之甚少。因此，在这里我们研究了首发精神病患者（FEP）队列中执行处理过程中的背景连通性。
本 fMRI 研究考察了在 43 名 FEP 患者和 35 名健康对照组（HC）中，工作记忆参与期间背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC）的背景连通性。还检查了这些发现与执行功能测量之间的关系。
与 HC 相比，FEP 组显示出与双侧顶叶上回（SPL）和左顶叶下回之间的背景 DLPFC 连通性明显降低。DLPFC 与 SPL 之间的背景连通性也与所有受试者以及我们的 FEP 组的整体认知呈正相关。相比之下，静息状态下的额顶叶连通性在组间没有差异，与整体认知也没有显著相关，这表明与精神病相关的执行网络改变仅在有目标导向行为的状态下出现。
这些结果提供了新的证据，表明在精神病中，尽管休息时的额顶叶连通性似乎完好无损，但在认知状态下参与时，它会受到损害，可能会削弱 FEP 中的认知控制能力。
