Xu Yongwang, Liu Hongfei, Liu Haiyan, Lin Defeng, Wu Sipeng, Peng Ziwen
Center for the Study of Applied Psychology, Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China.
Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, Guangzhou 510631, China.
Behav Sci (Basel). 2025 Apr 8;15(4):488. doi: 10.3390/bs15040488.
Functional differences in key brain networks, including the dorsal attention network (DAN), control network (CN), and default mode network (DMN), have been identified in individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, the precise nature of these differences remains unclear. In this study, we further explored these differences and validated previous findings using a novel edge functional connectivity (eFC) approach, which enables a more refined analysis of brain network interaction. By employing this advanced method, we sought to gain deeper insights into FC alterations that may underlie the pathology of OCD. We collected data during movie watching from 44 patients with OCD and 33 healthy controls (HCs). The two-sample test was used to assess differences in entropy between the DAN, CN, and DMN between groups. The analysis was performed with control for potentially confounding variables to ensure the robustness of the findings. Significant differences in network entropy were found between the OCD and HC groups. Relative to HCs, patients with OCD showed significantly reduced entropy in the DAN and increased entropy in the CN and DMN. The decreased entropy in the DAN and increased entropy in the CN and DMN observed in this study may be related to the core symptoms of OCD, such as attention deficit, impaired cognitive control, and self-referential thinking. These results provide valuable insights into the neurobiological mechanisms of OCD and highlight the potential of network entropy as a biomarker for the disorder. Future research should further explore the relationship between these network changes and the severity of OCD symptoms, as well as assess their implications for the development of treatment strategies.
在患有强迫症（OCD）的个体中，已发现关键脑网络存在功能差异，包括背侧注意网络（DAN）、控制网络（CN）和默认模式网络（DMN）。然而，这些差异的确切性质仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们进一步探讨了这些差异，并使用一种新颖的边缘功能连接性（eFC）方法验证了先前的研究结果，该方法能够对脑网络相互作用进行更精细的分析。通过采用这种先进方法，我们试图更深入地了解可能是强迫症病理学基础的功能连接改变。我们在观看电影期间收集了44名强迫症患者和33名健康对照（HCs）的数据。使用双样本检验来评估两组之间DAN、CN和DMN的熵差异。分析时对潜在的混杂变量进行了控制，以确保研究结果的稳健性。在强迫症组和健康对照组之间发现了网络熵的显著差异。相对于健康对照组，强迫症患者在DAN中的熵显著降低，而在CN和DMN中的熵增加。本研究中观察到的DAN中熵的降低以及CN和DMN中熵的增加可能与强迫症的核心症状有关，如注意力缺陷、认知控制受损和自我参照思维。这些结果为强迫症的神经生物学机制提供了有价值的见解，并突出了网络熵作为该疾病生物标志物的潜力。未来的研究应进一步探索这些网络变化与强迫症症状严重程度之间的关系，并评估它们对治疗策略发展的影响。
