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Abnormalities in the effective connectivity of visuothalamic circuitry in schizophrenia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2017

S. J. Iwabuchi  and
L. Palaniyappan
S. J. Iwabuchi
Affiliation:
Translational Neuroimaging for Mental Health, Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
L. Palaniyappan*
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychiatry & Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada Robarts Research Institute & The Brain and Mind Institute, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada Lawson Health Research Institute, London Ontario, Canada
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr L. Palaniyappan, Prevention & Early Intervention Program for Psychoses (PEPP), A2-636, LHSC-VH, 800 Commissioners Road, London, Ontario N6A 5W9, Canada. (Email: Lena.Palaniyappan@lhsc.on.ca)
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Abstract

Background

Sensory-processing deficits appear crucial to the clinical expression of symptoms of schizophrenia. The visual cortex displays both dysconnectivity and aberrant spontaneous activity in patients with persistent symptoms and cognitive deficits. In this paper, we examine visual cortex in the context of the remerging notion of thalamic dysfunction in schizophrenia. We examined specific regional and longer-range abnormalities in sensory and thalamic circuits in schizophrenia, and whether these patterns are strong enough to discriminate symptomatic patients from controls.

Method

Using publicly available resting fMRI data of 71 controls and 62 schizophrenia patients, we derived conjunction maps of regional homogeneity (ReHo) and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) to inform further seed-based Granger causality analysis (GCA) to study effective connectivity patterns. ReHo, fALFF and GCA maps were entered into a multiple kernel learning classifier, to determine whether patterns of local and effective connectivity can differentiate controls from patients.

Results

Visual cortex shows both ReHo and fALFF reductions in patients. Visuothalamic effective connectivity in patients was significantly reduced. Local connectivity (ReHo) patterns discriminated patients from controls with the highest level of accuracy of 80.32%.

Conclusions

Both the inflow and outflow of Granger causal information between visual cortex and thalamus is affected in schizophrenia; this occurs in conjunction with highly discriminatory but localized dysconnectivity and reduced neural activity within the visual cortex. This may explain the visual-processing deficits that are present despite symptomatic remission in schizophrenia.

Keywords

Effective connectivityfractional amplitutude of low frequency fluctuationsmachine learningregional homogeneityschizophreniavisuothalamic.
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 47 , Issue 7 , May 2017 , pp. 1300 - 1310
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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