Altered resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in patients with panic disorder before and after treatment

Haohao Yan; Yiding Han; Xiaoxiao Shan; Huabing Li; Feng Liu; Guojun Xie; Ping Li; Wenbin Guo

doi:10.1016/j.neuropharm.2023.109692

Altered resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in patients with panic disorder before and after treatment

Neuropharmacology. 2023 Dec 1:240:109692. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2023.109692. Epub 2023 Aug 29.

Authors

Haohao Yan¹, Yiding Han¹, Xiaoxiao Shan¹, Huabing Li², Feng Liu³, Guojun Xie⁴, Ping Li⁵, Wenbin Guo⁶

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, and National Center for Mental Disorders, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, 410011, Hunan, China.
² Department of Radiology, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, 410011, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, The Third People's Hospital of Foshan, Foshan, 528000, Guangdong, China.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, Qiqihar Medical University, Qiqihar, Heilongjiang, 161006, China.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, and National Center for Mental Disorders, The Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, Changsha, 410011, Hunan, China. Electronic address: guowenbin76@csu.edu.cn.

PMID: 37652260
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2023.109692

Abstract

The study aimed to investigate the functional connectivity (FC) between the cerebellum and intrinsic cerebral networks in patients with panic disorder (PD), and to observe changes in the cerebellar-cerebral FC following pharmacotherapy. Fifty-four patients with PD and 54 healthy controls (HCs) underwent clinical assessments and functional magnetic resonance imaging scans before and after a 5-week paroxetine treatment. Seed-based cerebellar-cerebral FC was compared between the PD and HC groups, as well as between patients with PD before and after treatment. Additionally, the correlations between FC and clinical features of PD were analyzed. Compared to HCs, patients with PD had altered cerebellar-cerebral FC in the default mode, affective-limbic, and sensorimotor networks. Moreover, a negative correlation between cerebellar-insula disconnection and the severity of depressive symptoms in patients with PD (Pearson correlation, r = -0.424, p = 0.001, Bonferroni corrected) was found. After treatment, most of the enhanced FCs observed in patients with PD at baseline returned to levels similar to those observed in HCs. However, the reduced FC at baseline did not significantly change after treatment. The findings suggest that patients with PD have specific deficits in resting-state cerebellar-cerebral FC and that paroxetine may improve PD by restoring the balance of cerebellar-cerebral FC. These findings emphasize the crucial involvement of cerebellar-cerebral FC in the neuropsychological mechanisms underlying PD and in the potential pharmacological mechanisms of paroxetine for treating PD.

Keywords: Anxiety disorder; Cerebellum; Default mode network; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Sensorimotor network.