Abstract
Schizophrenia is often regarded as a psychiatric disorder caused by disrupted connections in the brain. Evidence suggests that the gray matter of schizophrenia patients is damaged in a modular pattern. Recently, abnormal topological organization was observed in the gray matter networks of patients with schizophrenia. However, the modular-level alteration of gray matter networks in schizophrenia remains unclear. In this study, single-subject gray matter networks were constructed for a total of 217 subjects (116 patients with schizophrenia and 101 controls). We analyzed the topological characteristics of the brain network and the strengths of connections between and within modules. Compared with the outcomes in the control group, the global efficiency and participation coefficient values of the single-subject gray matter networks in schizophrenic patients were significantly reduced. The nodal participation coefficient of the regions involving the frontoparietal attention network, default mode network and subcortical network were significantly decreased in subjects with schizophrenia. The intermodule connections between the frontoparietal attention network and visual network and between the default mode network and subcortical network, in the frontoparietal attention network were significantly reduced in the patient group. In the frontoparietal attention network, the intramodule nodal connection strength of the left orbital inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal gyrus was significantly decreased in schizophrenia patients. Reduced intermodule nodal connection strength between the frontoparietal attention network and visual network was associated with the severity of schizophrenia symptoms. These findings suggest that abnormal intramodule and intermodule connections in the structural brain network may a biomarker of schizophrenia symptoms.
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The datasets used or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62176177, 61873178, 61906130), the National Key R & D Program of China (2018AAA0102601), and the Key Research and Development Project in Shanxi (201903D121151, 2019JG020153).
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Bin Wang and Yunxiao Ma conceived the idea, performed the data analysis, and wrote the draft. Miaomiao Liu, Yuxiang Guo and Ting Li have made great contributions to the subsequent revision of the paper. All authors discussed the results, and contributed to the final manuscript.
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We use data from the NU Schizophrenia Data Software Tool (NUSDAST) of the public schizophrenia neuroimaging database. All participants gave informed consent.
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Guo, Y., Ma, Y., Wang, G. et al. Modular-level alterations of single-subject gray matter networks in schizophrenia. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 855–867 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-021-00571-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-021-00571-z