Comparison of brain network between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A multimodal MRI analysis of comparative studies

Xinyue Teng; Chaoyue Guo; Xiaoxia Lei; Fuyin Yang; Zenan Wu; Lingfang Yu; Juanjuan Ren; Chen Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2023.01.116

Comparison of brain network between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: A multimodal MRI analysis of comparative studies

J Affect Disord. 2023 Apr 14:327:197-206. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.01.116. Epub 2023 Feb 2.

Authors

Xinyue Teng¹, Chaoyue Guo¹, Xiaoxia Lei¹, Fuyin Yang², Zenan Wu³, Lingfang Yu³, Juanjuan Ren¹, Chen Zhang⁴

Affiliations

¹ Division of Mood Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
² School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
³ Division of Mood Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
⁴ Division of Mood Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: zhangchen645@gmail.com.

PMID: 36736789
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2023.01.116

Abstract

Objective: Cognitive impairment is a shared symptom of Schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BP), but the underlying neural mechanisms for both remain unclear. We aimed to identify abnormalities in the structural and functional brain network of patients with SCZ and BP.

Methods: The study included 69 patients with SCZ, 40 with BP, and 63 healthy controls (HC). After neurocognitive function assessment, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging were acquired respectively. We compared the network of structural connectivity (SC) and functional connectivity (FC) among the three groups and performed graph theoretical analyses. The SC-FC coupling was calculated, and the correlations between the cognitive function scores and network properties were ascertained.

Results: The BP group showed significantly higher indicators in subnetworks and graph theory analysis than SCZ and HC. Several brain regions, such as the inferior parietal lobe, exhibited differences among all pairwise comparisons and showed significant correlations with cognitive scores in both SCZ and BP. SC-FC coupling did not significantly differ between the three groups but showed close associations with clinical performance. Interestingly, the direction of correlations between the network properties and cognition tends to present the opposite between SCZ and BP, especially regarding the working memory, attention, and language sections.

Conclusions: The FC and SC network of the SCZ group appeared more inefficient and disconnected than BP. The network demonstrated to be closely but differently associated with cognitive function at both local and global levels, indicating the potentially separated pathologies of cognition deficits in SCZ and BP.

Keywords: Bipolar disorder; Cognitive impairments; Diffusion tensor imaging; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Graph theory; Schizophrenia.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Bipolar Disorder*
Brain
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods
Schizophrenia*