Hyperactivation of the Frontal Control Network Revealed by Symptom Provocation in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Using EEG Microstate and sLORETA Analyses

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the changes of brain electric field induced by symptom provocation in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in comparison to healthy controls in the resting state. For this purpose, EEG recordings in conditions of initial rest, clean control, symptom provocation by imaginal exposure, and final rest were used for computing spatiotemporal activity characteristics based on microstate segmentation. Within-group comparisons were significant for the symptom provocation condition: OCD showed high global field power (GFP) and transition rates into a medial frontal microstate, whereas healthy controls showed high frequency of occurrence and high percent of dwelling time for a medial occipitoparietal microstate. Between-group comparisons demonstrated significantly lower GFP and dwelling time for the medial occipitoparietal microstate in OCD in several conditions including initial rest and symptom provocation. In addition, OCD compared to healthy controls showed significant instability of the medial occipitoparietal microstate, with high preference for transitions into the medial frontal microstate. In conclusion, during rest and symptom provocation, OCD patients make preferential use of a medial frontal brain network, with concomitant reduction of use of a medial occipitoparietal network, as shown by dwelling times, explained variance, and dynamic transition rates. These findings support the idea of a possible biological marker for OCD, which might correspond to pathological hyperactivation of the frontal control network.

Abnormal dynamics of functional connectivity in first‐episode and treatment‐naive patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

“…In our study, frequent switches between different functional states of OCD also support characteristics of more changes in the dynamic functional network in OCD and manifest this change as a numerical indicator. In addition, the electroencephalogram study on OCD also showed that compared with HC, functional states in OCD groups were obviously unstable, and the conversion rate between states was significantly increased, 51 which is similar to what we have found in this study. In the study of dFNC in schizophrenia, there was a significant reduction in the number of transitions between states, and it was speculated that the temporal dynamics of the brain network in schizophrenia were seriously and universally changed 24 .…”

Functional connectivity abnormalities of brain networks in obsessive–compulsive disorder: a systematic review

“…Significant relationships between FC and clinical measures emerged. Specifically, executive networks FC has been predominantly positively associated with total severity scores, in line with evidence about hyper-responsiveness of cognitive control and monitoring systems at the basis of OCD manifestations (Bucci et al, 2004;Bucci et al, 2007;Endrass et al, 2010;Maltby et al, 2005;Riesel et al, 2014;Yoshimura et al, 2019). Nonetheless, relationships in the opposite direction (Xie et al, 2017) might challenge this assumption.…”

“…The increased intra-network FC suggests an intrinsic aberrant recruitment of cognitive control processes. Indeed, OCD is thought to be characterized by over-recruitment of cognitive control (Bucci et al, 2004;Yoshimura et al, 2019). Specifically, hyperactivity and defective downregulation of monitoring processes were extensively reported (Bucci et al, 2007;Endrass et al, 2010;Riesel et al, 2014).…”

Disrupted brain network dynamics and cognitive functions in methamphetamine use disorder: insights from EEG microstates

“…Relative to HC, we found that the GEV of patients with MA use disorder exhibited higher in microstate C, but lower for microstate B. Notably, patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder also have abnormalities in these two microstate classes [61]; that is, the occurrence of these microstates was significantly different from those of HC. Previous studies have also suggested similarities in the manifestation of visual and salience network networks in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder and addiction [62][63][64][65][66][67].…”