Disrupted Cerebellar Connectivity With the Central Executive Network and the Default-Mode Network in Unmedicated Bipolar II Disorder

Xiaomei Luo; Guanmao Chen; Yanbin Jia; JiaYing Gong; Shaojuan Qiu; Shuming Zhong; Lianping Zhao; Feng Chen; Shunkai Lai; Zhangzhang Qi; Li Huang; Ying Wang

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00705

Disrupted Cerebellar Connectivity With the Central Executive Network and the Default-Mode Network in Unmedicated Bipolar II Disorder

Front Psychiatry. 2018 Dec 18:9:705. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00705. eCollection 2018.

Authors

Xiaomei Luo^{1

2}, Guanmao Chen^{1

2}, Yanbin Jia³, JiaYing Gong^{2

4}, Shaojuan Qiu^{1

2}, Shuming Zhong³, Lianping Zhao^{1

5}, Feng Chen^{1

2}, Shunkai Lai³, Zhangzhang Qi^{1

2}, Li Huang^{1

2}, Ying Wang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Medical Imaging Center, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
² Institute of Molecular and Functional Imaging, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
³ Department of Psychiatry, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ The Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Gansu Provincial Hospital, Lanzhou, China.

Abstract

Objective: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a common psychiatric disease. Although structural and functional abnormalities of the cerebellum in BD patients have been reported by recent neuroimaging studies, the cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity (FC) has not yet been examined. The present study aims to investigate the FC between the cerebellum and cerebrum, particularly the central executive network (CEN) and the default-mode network (DMN) in bipolar II disorder (BD II). Methods: Ninety-four patients with unmedicated BD II depression and 100 healthy controls (HCs) underwent the resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Seed-based connectivity analyses were performed using cerebellar seeds previously identified as being involved in the CEN (bilateral Crus Ia) and DMN (bilateral Crus Ib). Results: Compared with HCs, BD II depression patients appeared decreased FC in the right Crus Ia-left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and -left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), the right Crus Ib-left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), -left middle temporal gyrus (MTG), and -left inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). No altered FC between the left Crus Ia or Crus Ib and the cerebral regions was found. Conclusions: Patients with BD II depression showed disrupted FC between the cerebellum and the CEN (mainly in the left dlPFC and ACC) and DMN (mainly in the left mPFC and temporal lobe), suggesting the significant role of the cerebellum-CEN and -DMN connectivity in the pathogenesis of BD.

Keywords: bipolar disorder; central executive network; cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity; default-mode network; functional magnetic resonance imaging.