Zheng Yi, Yang Yaqian, Zhen Yi, Wang Xin, Liu Longzhao, Zheng Hongwei, Tang Shaoting
School of Mathematical Sciences, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
Key Laboratory of Mathematics, Informatics and Behavioral Semantics, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
Front Neurosci. 2025 Apr 9;19:1572463. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2025.1572463. eCollection 2025.
Cocaine use disorder (CUD) is a chronic brain condition that severely impairs cognitive function and behavioral control. The neural mechanisms underlying CUD, particularly its impact on brain integration-segregation dynamics, remain unclear.
In this study, we integrate dynamic functional connectivity and graph theory to compare the brain state properties of healthy controls and CUD patients.
We find that CUD influences both integrated and segregated states, leading to distinct alterations in connectivity patterns and network properties. CUD disrupts connectivity involving the default mode network, frontoparietal network, and subcortical structures. In addition, integrated states show distinct sensorimotor connectivity alterations, while segregated states exhibit significant alterations in frontoparietal-subcortical connectivity. Regional connectivity alterations among both states are significantly associated with MOR and H3 receptor distributions, with integrated states showing more receptor-connectivity couplings. Furthermore, CUD alters the positive-negative correlation balance, increases functional complexity at threshold 0, and reduces mean betweenness centrality and modularity in the critical subnetworks. Segregated states in CUD exhibit lower normalized clustering coefficients and functional complexity at a threshold of 0.3. We also identify network properties in integrated states that are reliably correlated with cocaine consumption patterns.
Our findings reveal temporal effects of CUD on brain integration and segregation, providing novel insights into the dynamic neural mechanisms underlying cocaine addiction.
可卡因使用障碍（CUD）是一种慢性脑部疾病，会严重损害认知功能和行为控制。CUD背后的神经机制，尤其是其对大脑整合-分离动态的影响，仍不清楚。
在本研究中，我们整合动态功能连接和图论，以比较健康对照者和CUD患者的脑状态特性。
我们发现CUD会影响整合态和分离态，导致连接模式和网络特性出现明显改变。CUD会破坏涉及默认模式网络、额顶叶网络和皮质下结构的连接。此外，整合态显示出明显的感觉运动连接改变，而分离态在额顶叶-皮质下连接方面表现出显著改变。两种状态下的区域连接改变都与MOR和H3受体分布显著相关，整合态显示出更多的受体-连接耦合。此外，CUD会改变正负相关平衡，增加阈值为0时的功能复杂性，并降低关键子网络中的平均介数中心性和模块化程度。CUD中的分离态在阈值为0.3时表现出较低的标准化聚类系数和功能复杂性。我们还确定了整合态中与可卡因消费模式可靠相关的网络特性。
我们的研究结果揭示了CUD对大脑整合和分离的时间效应，为可卡因成瘾背后的动态神经机制提供了新的见解。
