Kim Nahrie Suk, Lee Tae Young, Hwang Wu Jeong, Kwak Yoo Bin, Kim Seowoo, Moon Sun-Young, Lho Silvia Kyungjin, Oh Sanghoon, Kwon Jun Soo
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Seoul National University College of Natural Science, Seoul, South Korea.
Biomedical Research Institute, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan, South Korea.
Front Psychiatry. 2021 Mar 5;12:617683. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.617683. eCollection 2021.
Deficits in theory of mind (ToM) are considered as a distinctive feature of schizophrenia. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have suggested that aberrant activity among the regions comprising the mentalizing network is related to observed ToM deficits. However, the white matter structures underlying the ToM functional network in schizophrenia remain unclear. To investigate the relationship between white matter integrity and ToM impairment, 35 patients with first-episode psychosis (FEP) and 29 matched healthy controls (HCs) underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS), fractional anisotropy (FA) values of the two regions of interest (ROI)-the cingulum and superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF)-were acquired, and correlational analysis with ToM task scores was performed. Among the patients with FEP, ToM strange story scores were positively correlated with the FA values of the left cingulum and left SLF. There was no significant correlation between FA and ToM task scores in HCs. These results suggest that the left cingulum and SLF constitute a possible neural basis for ToM deficits in schizophrenia. Our study is the first to demonstrate the white matter connectivity underlying the mentalizing network, as well as its relation to ToM ability in patients with FEP.
心理理论（ToM）缺陷被认为是精神分裂症的一个显著特征。功能磁共振成像（fMRI）研究表明，构成心理化网络的区域之间的异常活动与观察到的ToM缺陷有关。然而，精神分裂症中ToM功能网络背后的白质结构仍不清楚。为了研究白质完整性与ToM损伤之间的关系，35例首发精神病（FEP）患者和29例匹配的健康对照（HC）接受了扩散张量成像（DTI）。使用基于束的空间统计学（TBSS），获取了两个感兴趣区域（ROI）——扣带束和上纵束（SLF）的分数各向异性（FA）值，并与ToM任务分数进行了相关性分析。在FEP患者中，ToM奇怪故事分数与左侧扣带束和左侧SLF的FA值呈正相关。HC中FA与ToM任务分数之间无显著相关性。这些结果表明，左侧扣带束和SLF构成了精神分裂症中ToM缺陷的可能神经基础。我们的研究首次证明了心理化网络背后的白质连通性及其与FEP患者ToM能力的关系。
