Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in psychiatry use various tasks to identify case‐control differences in the patterns of task‐related brain activation. Differently activated regions are often ascribed disorder‐specific functions in an attempt to link disease expression and brain function. We undertook a systematic meta‐analysis of data from task‐fMRI studies to examine the effect of diagnosis and study design on the spatial distribution and direction of case‐control differences on brain activation. We mapped to atlas regions coordinates of case‐control differences derived from 537 task‐fMRI studies in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, and obsessive compulsive disorder comprising observations derived from 21,427 participants. The fMRI tasks were classified according to the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). We investigated whether diagnosis, RDoC domain or construct and use of regions‐of‐interest or whole‐brain analyses influenced the neuroanatomical pattern of results. When considering all primary studies, we found an effect of diagnosis for the amygdala and caudate nucleus and an effect of RDoC domains and constructs for the amygdala, hippocampus, putamen and nucleus accumbens. In contrast, whole‐brain studies did not identify any significant effect of diagnosis or RDoC domain or construct. These results resonate with prior reports of common brain structural and genetic underpinnings across these disorders and caution against attributing undue specificity to brain functional changes when forming explanatory models of psychiatric disorders. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1846–1864, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Multivariate analyses provide a more accurate characterization of the association between brain alterations and psychosis because they enable the modeling of other key factors that influence neuroimaging phenotypes.

IMPORTANCE Major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and anxiety disorders are highly comorbid and have shared clinical features. It is not yet known whether their clinical overlap is reflected at the neurobiological level. OBJECTIVE To detect transdiagnostic convergence in abnormalities in task-related brain activation. DATA SOURCE Task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging articles published in PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar during the last decade comparing control individuals with patients with mood, posttraumatic stress, and anxiety disorders were examined. STUDY SELECTION Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses reporting guidelines, articles were selected if they reported stereotactic coordinates of whole-brain-based activation differences between adult patients and control individuals. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS Coordinates of case-control differences coded by diagnosis and by cognitive domain based on the research domain criteria were analyzed using activation likelihood estimation. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Identification of transdiagnostic clusters of aberrant activation and quantification of the contribution of diagnosis and cognitive domain to each cluster. RESULTS A total of 367 experiments (major depressive disorder, 149; bipolar disorder, 103; posttraumatic stress disorder, 55; and anxiety disorders, 60) were included comprising observations from 4507 patients and 4755 control individuals. Three right-sided clusters of hypoactivation were identified centered in the inferior prefrontal cortex/insula (volume, 2120 mm 3), the inferior parietal lobule (volume, 1224 mm 3), and the putamen (volume, 888 mm 3); diagnostic differences were noted only in the putamen (χ 2 3 = 8.66; P = .03), where hypoactivation was more likely in bipolar disorder (percentage contribution = 72.17%). Tasks associated with cognitive systems made the largest contribution to each cluster (percentage contributions >29%). Clusters of hyperactivation could only be detected using a less stringent threshold. These were centered in the perigenual/dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (volume, 2208 mm 3), the left amygdala/parahippocampal gyrus (volume, 2008 mm 3), and the left thalamus (volume, 1904 mm 3). No diagnostic differences were observed (χ 2 3 < 3.06; P > .38), while tasks associated with negative valence systems made the largest contribution to each cluster (percentage contributions >49%). All findings were robust to the moderator effects of age, sex, and magnetic field strength of the scanner and medication. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In mood disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder, and anxiety disorders, the most consistent transdiagnostic abnormalities in task-related brain activity converge in regions that are primarily associated with inhibitory control and salience processing. Targeting these shared neural phenotypes could potentially mitigate the risk of affective morbidity in the general population and improve outcomes in clinical...

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Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive ritualistic behaviors and has been associated with diverse functional brain abnormalities. We sought to synthesize current evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies and examine their alignment to pathogenetic models of OCD. Following systematic review, we identified 54 task-fMRI studies published in the last decade comparing adults with OCD (n=1186) to healthy adults (n=1159) using tasks of affective and non-affective cognition. We used voxel-based quantitative meta-analytic methods to combine primary data on anatomical coordinates of case-control differences, separately for affective and non-affective tasks. We found that functional abnormalities in OCD cluster within cortico-striatal thalamic circuits. Within these circuits, the abnormalities identified showed significant dependence on the affective or non-affective nature of the tasks employed as circuit probes. In studies using affective tasks, patients overactivated regions involved in salience, arousal and habitual responding (anterior cingulate cortex, insula, caudate head and putamen) and underactivated regions implicated in cognitive and behavioral control (medial prefrontal cortex, posterior caudate). In studies using non-affective cognitive tasks, patients overactivated regions involved in self-referential processing (precuneus, posterior cingulate cortex) and underactivated subcortical regions that support goal-directed cognition and motor control (pallidum, ventral anterior thalamus, posterior caudate). The overall pattern suggests that OCD-related brain dysfunction involves increased affective and self-referential processing, enhanced habitual responding and blunted cognitive control.