Decreased Resting-State Interhemispheric Functional Connectivity in Medication-Free Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Cuicui Jia; Yangpan Ou; Yunhui Chen; Ping Li; Dan Lv; Ru Yang; Zhaoxi Zhong; Lei Sun; Yuhua Wang; Guangfeng Zhang; Hong Guo; Zhenghai Sun; Wei Wang; Yefu Wang; Xiaoping Wang; Wenbin Guo

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2020.559729

Decreased Resting-State Interhemispheric Functional Connectivity in Medication-Free Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Front Psychiatry. 2020 Sep 15:11:559729. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.559729. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Cuicui Jia¹, Yangpan Ou², Yunhui Chen¹, Ping Li¹, Dan Lv¹, Ru Yang³, Zhaoxi Zhong⁴, Lei Sun¹, Yuhua Wang¹, Guangfeng Zhang⁵, Hong Guo⁶, Zhenghai Sun¹, Wei Wang⁷, Yefu Wang¹, Xiaoping Wang², Wenbin Guo²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, Qiqihar Medical University, Qiqihar, China.
² National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, and Department of Psychiatry, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ Department of Radiology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, China.
⁴ Henan Key Lab of Biological Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Qiqihar Medical University, Qiqihar, China.
⁶ Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Qiqihar, Qiqihar, China.
⁷ Department of Library, Qiqihar Medical University, Qiqihar, China.

Abstract

Objective: Decreased homotopic connectivity of brain networks such as the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) circuits may contribute to the pathophysiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, little is known about interhemispheric functional connectivity (FC) at rest in OCD. In this study, the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method was applied to explore interhemispheric coordination at rest in OCD.

Methods: Forty medication-free patients with OCD and 38 sex-, age-, and education level-matched healthy controls (HCs) underwent a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The VMHC and support vector machine (SVM) methods were used to analyze the data.

Results: Patients with OCD had remarkably decreased VMHC values in the orbitofrontal cortex, thalamus, middle occipital gyrus, and precentral and postcentral gyri compared with HCs. A combination of the VMHC values in the thalamus and postcentral gyrus could optimally distinguish patients with OCD from HCs.

Conclusions: Our findings highlight the contribution of decreased interhemispheric FC within and outside the CSTC circuits in OCD and provide evidence to the pathophysiology of OCD.

Keywords: functional magnetic resonance imaging; obsessive-compulsive disorder; resting-state; support vector machine; voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity.