Functional Connectivity of the Caudate in Schizophrenia Evaluated with Simultaneous Resting-State Functional MRI and Electroencephalography Recordings

Abstract

Background: Aberrant functional connectivity (FC) is increasingly implicated in the clinical phenomenology of schizophrenia. This study focused on the FC of the cortico-striatal network, which is thought to be disrupted in schizophrenia and to contribute to its clinical manifestations. Methods: We used simultaneous resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) recordings to investigate FC in patients with schizophrenia. The study included 20 patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls (HCs). Simultaneously recorded rsfMRI and EEG data were collected with an MR-compatible amplifier, and rsfMRI data were analyzed with the CONN toolbox to calculate FC. The study focused on the caudate, which was defined as the seed. We also performed between-group comparisons of standardized low-resolution electromagnetic tomography intracortical lagged coherence for each EEG frequency band. Results: Compared to HCs, patients with schizophrenia showed enhanced FC between the caudate nucleus and the posterior cingulate cortex, temporal, and occipital regions on rsfMRI. It is thus possible that HCs have negative FC between these regions, whereas patients with schizophrenia have non-negative FC. The EEG results showed no significant differences in oscillations or in FC between the groups in any frequency band in any region. Conclusions: Increased FC in the caudate may represent aberrant between-network FC resulting from the disruption of segregation between networks.

Functional parcellation of human and macaque striatum reveals human-specific connectivity in the dorsal caudate

“…7 ). This result was in line with previous studies that showed increased RSFC between striatum and various cortices, including prefrontal, temporal and cingulate cortex, in SCZ patients ( Kirino et al., 2019 ; Salvador et al., 2010 ). This increased cortico-striatal RSFC may reflect disruption of segregation between subcortical and cortical functional network ( Kirino et al., 2019 ).…”

“…This result was in line with previous studies that showed increased RSFC between striatum and various cortices, including prefrontal, temporal and cingulate cortex, in SCZ patients ( Kirino et al., 2019 ; Salvador et al., 2010 ). This increased cortico-striatal RSFC may reflect disruption of segregation between subcortical and cortical functional network ( Kirino et al., 2019 ). Specifically, we found significantly stronger RSFC between striatal clusters (dorsal caudate, ventral and central putamen) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) which is a part of the default mode network (DMN).…”

Reproducibility of graph measures at the subject level using resting‐state fMRI

“…Once nodes have been defined, another important question to consider is how to quantify the interaction among these spatially distinct regions through neurobiologically interpretable quantities. The most commonly used functional interactions are based on correlations (Kirino et al., 2019) or partial correlations (Lin et al., 2018) between the time course of two nodes. Functional connections based on correlations between two spatially distinct regions could be driven by other regions (Wang et al., 2014).…”

NeuroMark: a fully automated ICA method to identify effective fMRI markers of brain disorders

“…The thalamus is known for its important roles in visual, auditory, motor activity, emotion, memory and sensorimotor association functions, and the caudate nucleus integrates spatial information with motor behavior formulation. There has been evidence supporting functional abnormalities of these regions in SZ (Chen et al, 2019; Kirino et al, 2019; Woodward et al, 2012). Chen et al (Chen et al, 2019) revealed that thalamic hyperconnectivity with sensorimotor areas is related to the severity of cognitive deficits and clinical symptoms.…”