Cortical morphometry alterations in brain regions involved in emotional, motor-control and self-referential processing in patients with functional constipation

Hu, Chunxin; Liu, Li; Liu, Lei; Zhang, Junwang; Hu, Yang; Zhang, Wenchao; Ding, Yueyan; Wang, Yuanyuan; Zhang, Zhida; Deneen, Karen M. von; Qian, Long; Wang, Huaning; Duan, Shijun; Wang, Fan; Cui, Guangbin; Nie, Yongzhan; Zhang, Yi

doi:10.1007/s11682-019-00133-4

Cited by 23 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…53 Meanwhile, the functional abnormality of PreCen in patients with FCon has been reported to be associated with its inability to control bowel movement. 8,11,12 The negative correlation between difficulty of defecation and FA in the left thalamus-PreCen tract found in the current study reflects the association between abnormal structural connectivity of the left thalamus-PreCen tract and dysfunction in bowel movement control. 53,54 SMA contains cortical spinal neurons that are directly projected to spinal motor neurons.…”

Section: Alterations In Sc Between the Thalamus And Regions Associated With Somatic/motor Controlsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…6 Recently, neuroimaging has been increasingly used to investigate brain functional and structural alterations in multiple brain regions in patients with FCon. [7][8][9][10][11] One resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) study in patients with FCon reported brain functional abnormalities in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), insula (INS), orbital frontal cortex (OFC), and hippocampal gyrus (HIPP) which are regions involved in emotional process modulation, and in the precentral gyrus (PreCen) and supplementary motor area (SMA) which are regions involved in somatic/motor control. 12 Another recent RS-fMRI study aimed to investigate sex-related differences in resting-state brain activity and connectivity in patients with FCon displayed lower basal brain activities (INS, OFC, thalamus, PreCen) in the female FCon group than in males as well as a negative association between INS/ OFC and constipation symptoms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Functional constipation is associated with alterations in thalamo‐limbic/parietal structural connectivity

Zhang

et al. 2020

Neurogastroenterology Motil

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Functional constipation (FCon) is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder (FGID) with a high prevalence in clinical practice. Previous studies have identified that FCon is associated with functional and structural alterations in the primary brain regions involved in emotional arousal processing, sensory processing, somatic/ motor-control, and self-referential processing. However, whether FCon is associated with abnormal structural connectivity (SC) among these brain regions remains unclear. Methods:We selected the brain regions with functional and structural abnormalities as seed regions and employed diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) with probabilistic tractography to investigate SC changes in 29 patients with FCon and 31 healthy controls (HC). Key Results:Results showed lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in the fibers connecting the thalamus, a region involved in sensory processing, with the amygdala (AMY), hippocampal gyrus (HIPP), precentral (PreCen) and postcentral gyrus (PostCen), supplementary motor area (SMA) and precuneus in patients with FCon compared with HC.FCon had higher mean diffusivity (MD) and radial diffusivity (RD) in the thalamus connected to the AMY and HIPP. In addition, FCon had significantly increased RD of the thalamus-SMA tract. Sensation of incomplete evacuation was negatively correlated with FA of the thalamus-PostCen and thalamus-HIPP tracts, and there was a negative correlation between difficulty of defecation and FA of the thalamus-SMA tract.Conclusions and Inferences: These findings reflected that FCon is associated with alterations in SC between the thalamus and limbic/parietal cortex, highlighting the integrative role of the thalamus in brain structural network.

show abstract

Section: Alterations In Sc Between the Thalamus And Regions Associated With Somatic/motor Controlsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functional constipation is associated with alterations in thalamo‐limbic/parietal structural connectivity

Zhang

et al. 2020

Neurogastroenterology Motil

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These results demonstrated that the functional abnormalities of patients with FC were not only in the brain regions but also in the functional networks (19). Additionally, using structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI), altered white matter (WM) microstructure (20) and cortical morphometry (21) in patients with FC have been identified. However, the features of structural connectivity especially WM network properties in patients with FC have not been covered.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…As a key region involved in the conduction and integration of sensory information, OFC receives multiple sensory inputs (gustatory, olfactory, somatosensory, auditory, and visual) and visceral sensory information (56) and is considered to be important in integrating visceral sensorimotor information (57,58). Functional and structural abnormalities of the OFC in patients with FC were found in some neuroimaging studies (17,21). For example, a recent structural MRI study showed that patients with FC manifested abnormal cortical thickness of the OFC compared with HS (21), and the fMRI study found altered activity of the same structure (18).…”

Section: The Increased Nodal Characteristics In Patients With Fcmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alterations of White Matter Network Properties in Patients With Functional Constipation

Yin

et al. 2021

Front. Neurol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: The abnormalities in brain function and structure of patients with functional constipation (FC) have been identified using multiple neuroimaging studies and have confirmed the abnormal processing of visceral sensation at the level of the central nervous system (CNS) as an important reason for FC. As an important basis for central information transfer, the role of the white matter (WM) networks in the pathophysiology of FC has not been investigated. This study aimed to explore the topological organization of WM networks in patients with FC and its correlation with clinical variables.Methods and Analysis: In this study, 70 patients with FC and 45 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects (HS) were recruited. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data and clinical variables were acquired from each participant. WM networks were constructed using the deterministic fiber tracking approach, and the global and nodal properties of the WM networks were compared using graph theory analysis between patients with FC and HS. The relationship between the representative nodal characteristics–nodal betweenness and clinical parameters was assessed using partial correlation analysis.Results: Patients with FC showed increased nodal characteristics in the left superior frontal gyrus (orbital part), right middle frontal gyrus (orbital part), and right anterior cingulate and paracingulate (P < 0.05, corrected for false discovery rate) and decreased nodal characteristics in the left caudate and left thalamus (P < 0.05, corrected for false discovery rate) compared with HS. The duration of FC was negatively correlated with the nodal betweenness of the left thalamus (r = −0.354, P = 0.04, corrected for false discovery rate).Conclusion: The results indicated the alternations in WM networks of patients with FC and suggested the abnormal visceral sensation processing in the CNS from the perspective of large-scale brain WM network.

show abstract

“…In recent years, the theory of brain–gut interaction was generally recognized (Drossman & Hasler, 2016 ; Mayer et al, 2019 ), which provided a new perspective to explain the occurrence and development of FCon from the central nervous system. Evidence from recent neuroimaging studies illustrated that FCon patients had significant structural and functional alterations in brain regions which involved visceral sensorimotor (SM), cognitive control (CC), and emotional regulation (Duan et al, 2021 ; Hu et al, 2020 ; Jin et al, 2019 ; Li et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Peihong et al, 2021 ; Zhu et al, 2016 ). Among these altered brain regions in FCon patients, the anterior insula (aINS) was generally regarded as the critical node (Duan et al, 2021 ; Jin et al, 2019 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Zhu et al, 2016 ) for its essential role in processing interoceptive signals (Mayer, 2011 ), modulating visceral activities (Rubio et al, 2015 ), and regulating emotions and cognitions (Craig, 2009 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aberrant functional brain network dynamics in patients with functional constipation

Yin

et al. 2021

Human Brain Mapping

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The aberrant static functional connectivity of brain network has been widely investigated in patients with functional constipation (FCon). However, the dynamics of brain functional connectivity in FCon patients remained unknown. This study aimed to detect the brain dynamics of functional connectivity states and network topological organizations of FCon patients and investigate the correlations of the aberrant brain dynamics with symptom severity. Eighty-three FCon patients and 80 healthy subjects (HS) were included in data analysis. The spatial group independent component analysis, sliding-window approach, k-means clustering, and graph-theoretic analysis were applied to investigate the dynamic temporal properties and coupling patterns of functional connectivity states, as well as the time-variation of network topological organizations in FCon patients. Four reoccurring functional connectivity states were identified in k-means clustering analysis. Compared to HS, FCon patients manifested the lower occurrence rate and mean dwell time in the state with a complex connection between default mode network and cognitive control network, as well as the aberrant anterior insula-cortical coupling patterns in this state, which were significantly correlated with the symptom severity. The graph-theoretic analysis demonstrated that FCon patients had higher sample entropy at the nodal efficiency of anterior insula than HS. The current findings provided dynamic perspectives for Tao Yin, Zhaoxuan He, and Peihong Ma contributed equally to this study and are also the co-first authors.

show abstract

Cortical morphometry alterations in brain regions involved in emotional, motor-control and self-referential processing in patients with functional constipation

Cited by 23 publications

References 54 publications

Functional constipation is associated with alterations in thalamo‐limbic/parietal structural connectivity

Functional constipation is associated with alterations in thalamo‐limbic/parietal structural connectivity

Alterations of White Matter Network Properties in Patients With Functional Constipation

Aberrant functional brain network dynamics in patients with functional constipation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About