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Functional connectivity of thalamus in children with primary nocturnal enuresis: results from a resting-state fMRI study

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Abstract

Primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) is characterized by a low cure rate and a high reoccurrence rate, since its underlying mechanism remains unclear. Based on the recent studies that thalamus plays an important role in waking up a sleeping person, here we further investigate the functional connectivity (FC) information between thalamus and other brain regions, in order to make better understanding of the PNE’s pathogenesis. In this study, we enrolled 30 children diagnosed with PNE and 30 typically developing children that are age and sex matched, the thalamus-based FC estimates were extracted at the resting-state. Experiments showed that for children with PNE, there were four brain regions found with a reduced connection efficiency with thalamus, that were cerebellum posterior lobe, frontal lobe, parietal lobe and precentral gyrus. It can be concluded that these relevant regions might induce an arousal disorder, and therefore further lead to PNE. This finding also provides a new insight in the pathophysiology of PNE.

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Funding

This study was funded by grants from the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grants 14JC1404600, 16411952800 and 18411960200), the Development of Science and Technology in Pu Dong District (PKJ2017-Y06).

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Author notes

  1. Anyi Zhang and Lichi Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, 1678 Dong-Fang Road, 200127, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China

    Anyi Zhang, Yiwen Zhang, Fan Jiang, Xingming Jin & Jun Ma

  2. Shanghai Institute of Pediatric Translational Medicine, Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Anyi Zhang, Yiwen Zhang, Fan Jiang, Xingming Jin & Jun Ma

  3. MOE-Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Anyi Zhang, Yiwen Zhang, Fan Jiang, Xingming Jin & Jun Ma

  4. Institute for Medical Imaging Technology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China

    Lichi Zhang

  5. Department of Physics, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, East China Normal University, 3663 North Zhong-Shan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Mengxing Wang & Xiaoxia Du

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  1. Anyi Zhang
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  2. Lichi Zhang
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Contributions

Anyi Zhang and Lichi Zhang co-designed the study, conducted the analysis, and drafted the initial manuscript; Mengxing Wang was involved in the acquisition of the data; Yiwen Zhang, Fan Jiang, and Xingming Jin contributed to the conduct of the study; Jun Ma and Xiaoxia Du co-designed the study, reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors reviewed the manuscript and approved the final version.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Xiaoxia Du or Jun Ma.

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The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to disclose.

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We have obtained the ethical approval of the Institutional Review Board of Shanghai Children’s Medical Center affiliated with Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (No: SCMC-201014). All methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

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All the subjects and their guardians have signed the informed consent. They were informed that the whole survey involvement would be innominate and voluntary, and they could withdraw from the survey at any time.

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Zhang, A., Zhang, L., Wang, M. et al. Functional connectivity of thalamus in children with primary nocturnal enuresis: results from a resting-state fMRI study. Brain Imaging and Behavior 15, 355–363 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-020-00262-1

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