Zhen Yi, Zheng Hongwei, Zheng Yi, Zheng Zhiming, Yang Yaqian, Tang Shaoting
School of Mathematical Sciences, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.
Key Laboratory of Mathematics, Informatics and Behavioral Semantics, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China.
Brain Sci. 2025 Mar 16;15(3):313. doi: 10.3390/brainsci15030313.
BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder characterized by deficits in perception and advanced cognitive functions. Prior studies have reported abnormal lateralization in cortical morphology and functional connectivity in schizophrenia. However, it remains unclear whether schizophrenia affects hemispheric asymmetry in the hierarchical organization of functional connectome.
Here, we apply a gradient mapping framework to the hemispheric functional connectome to estimate the first three gradients, which characterize unimodal-to-transmodal, visual-to-somatomotor, and somatomotor/default mode-to-multiple demand hierarchy axes. We then assess between-group differences in intra- and inter-hemispheric asymmetries of these three functional gradients.
We find that, compared to healthy controls, patients with schizophrenia exhibit significantly altered hemispheric asymmetry in functional gradient across multiple networks, including the dorsal attention, ventral attention, visual, and control networks. Region-level analyses further reveal that patients with schizophrenia show significantly abnormal hemispheric gradient asymmetries in several cortical regions in the dorsal prefrontal gyrus, medial superior frontal gyrus, and somatomotor areas. Lastly, we find that hemispheric asymmetries in functional gradients can differentiate between patients and healthy controls and predict the severity of positive symptoms in schizophrenia.
Collectively, these findings suggest that schizophrenia is associated with altered hemispheric asymmetry in functional hierarchy, providing novel perspectives for understanding the atypical brain lateralization in schizophrenia.
背景/目的：精神分裂症是一种严重的精神疾病，其特征为感知和高级认知功能缺陷。先前的研究报道了精神分裂症患者皮质形态和功能连接的异常偏侧化。然而，精神分裂症是否会影响功能连接组层次组织中的半球不对称性仍不清楚。
在此，我们将梯度映射框架应用于半球功能连接组，以估计前三个梯度，这些梯度表征了单峰到跨峰、视觉到躯体运动以及躯体运动/默认模式到多重需求层次轴。然后，我们评估这三个功能梯度在半球内和半球间不对称性的组间差异。
我们发现，与健康对照组相比，精神分裂症患者在包括背侧注意、腹侧注意、视觉和控制网络在内的多个网络中，功能梯度的半球不对称性显著改变。区域水平分析进一步揭示，精神分裂症患者在背侧前额叶回、内侧额上回和躯体运动区域的几个皮质区域中，半球梯度不对称性显著异常。最后，我们发现功能梯度的半球不对称性可以区分患者和健康对照组，并预测精神分裂症阳性症状的严重程度。
总体而言，这些发现表明精神分裂症与功能层次中的半球不对称性改变有关，为理解精神分裂症中非典型的脑偏侧化提供了新的视角。
