Although aberrant brain regional responses are reported in social anxiety disorder (SAD), little is known about resting-state functional connectivity at the macroscale network level. This study aims to identify functional network abnormalities using a multivariate data-driven method in a relatively large and homogenous sample of SAD patients, and assess their potential diagnostic value.

Forty-six SAD patients and 52 demographically-matched healthy controls (HC) were recruited to undergo clinical evaluation and resting-state functional MRI scanning. We used group independent component analysis to characterize the functional architecture of brain resting-state networks (RSNs) and investigate between-group differences in intra-/inter-network functional network connectivity (FNC). Furtherly, we explored the associations of FNC abnormalities with clinical characteristics, and assessed their ability to discriminate SAD from HC using support vector machine analyses.

SAD patients showed widespread intra-network FNC abnormalities in the default mode network, the subcortical network and the perceptual system (i.e. sensorimotor, auditory and visual networks), and large-scale inter-network FNC abnormalities among those high-order and primary RSNs. Some aberrant FNC signatures were correlated to disease severity and duration, suggesting pathophysiological relevance. Furthermore, intrinsic FNC anomalies allowed individual classification of SAD v. HC with significant accuracy, indicating potential diagnostic efficacy.

SAD patients show distinct patterns of functional synchronization abnormalities both within and across large-scale RSNs, reflecting or causing a network imbalance of bottom-up response and top-down regulation in cognitive, emotional and sensory domains. Therefore, this could offer insights into the neurofunctional substrates of SAD.

Psychosis onset typically occurs during adolescence or early adulthood, coinciding with the latest stage of brain maturation. Alterations in brain functional connectivity (FC) accompany the emergence of psychiatric symptoms and cognitive impairments. Thus, age-related FC changes may be informative regarding psychosis onset.

We defined neurotypical age-related FC trajectories and hypothesized that FC of individuals at familial and clinical high risk (HR) for psychosis deviates from FC of neurotypical controls (NC).

We analyzed two independent cohorts, of (a) 356 early adult NC (yNC; age=22±2y, m:f=149:207), and 127 mature adult NC (aNC; age=38±7y, m:f=79:48), and (b) 92 yNC (age=22±2y, m:f=34:58), 33 aNC (age=36±6y, m:f=21:12), 38 early HR adults (age=20±3y, m:f=18:20). We acquired fMRI data from multiple scans (resting-state, working memory, episodic memory, and implicit emotion processing). FC was obtained by computing Pearson’s correlations between time-courses of every independent component (IC) defined by an Independent Component Analysis approach (NeuroMark). Age-varying components of interest (yNC/aNC differences on FC based on linear mixed effect regressions) were tested for differences between HR and yNC through the Wilcoxon rank-sum test.

showed age-related FC differences (yNC/aNC) in a set of 17 IC pairs (pFDR<0.05). HR showed increased FC within a network including dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortices, and sensorimotor cortex, while decreased FC between cerebellum and the parietal and visual cortices, compared with yNC (pFDR<0.05). HR showed no significant difference compared with aNC (pFDR>0.05).

This study tested FC alterations associated with the risk for psychosis and highlighted the relationship between psychosis and potentially altered brain functional processes.

No significant relationships.

ECT is an effective treatment for depression. Beyond its therapeutic effect on mood it has a unique impact on psychomotor and cognitive symptoms.Its mechanism of action remains still unclear. To investigate this, we set out to study the brain’s response to ECT from a large-scale brain-network perspective.

The aim of this study was to investigate changes in resting-state functional connectivity following ECT at the whole brain, between-network and within-network level, in patients with a depressive episode.

Resting-state FMRI data were collected from 17 patients with depression before and after an ECT course. Using a group independent component analysis approach, we focused on four networks that are known to be affected in depression: the salience network (SN), default mode network (DMN), cognitive executive network (CEN) and a subcortical network (SCN). Clinical measures including mood, cognition and psychomotor symptoms were assessed.

ECT increased connectivity of the left CEN with the left angular gyrus and left middle frontal gyrus. An increase in left CEN within network connectivity was observed. Both the right CEN and the SCN showed increased connectivity with the precuneus. Furthermore, the anterior DMN showed increased connectivity with the left amygdala. Finally, improvement of psychomotor retardation was positively correlated with an increase of within-posterior DMN connectivity.

We demonstrate that ECT induces a significant increase of connectivity at both the whole brain and within-network level. Furthermore, we provide first evidence on the association between an increase of within posterior DMN connectivity and an improvement of psychomotor retardation, a core symptom of depression.

No significant relationships.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are both severe psychiatric disorders. Though these two disorders have distinct typical symptoms, there are partial polygenic overlap and comorbidity between the two disorders. However, few studies have explored the shared and disorder-specific brain function underlying the neural pathophysiology of the two disorders, especially in the aspect of dynamics.

To explore the abnormal characteristics of the dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) in OCD and SZ as well as the association between dFC metrics and symptom severity.

The resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 31 patients with OCD, 49 patients with SZ, and 45 healthy controls were analyzed using independent component analysis to obtain independent components (ICs) and assigned them into eight brain networks (Figure 1), then used the sliding-window approach to generate dFC matrices. Using k-means clustering, we obtained three reoccurring dFC states (Figure 2), and state transition metrics were obtained

In a sparsely connected state (state 1), SZ showed both increased fractional time and mean dwell time than controls (P=0.047 and P=0.033) and OCD (P=0.001 and P=0.003). In a state characterized by negative FC between networks (state 2), OCD showed both increased fractional time and mean dwell time than controls (P=0.032 and P=0.013) and SZ (P=0.005 and P=0.003). Moreover, the fractional time of state 2 was positively correlated with anxiety scores in OCD (r=0.535, P=0.021, FDR corrected) (Figure 3).

OCD and SZ patients showed distinct alternations of brain functional dynamics.

No significant relationships.

Recently, a triple-network model suggested the abnormal interactions between the executive-control network (ECN), default-mode network (DMN) and salience network (SN) are important characteristics of addiction, in which the SN plays a critical role in allocating attentional resources toward the ECN and DMN. Although increasing studies have reported dysfunctions in these brain networks in Internet gaming disorder (IGD), interactions between these networks, particularly in the context of the triple-network model, have not been investigated in IGD. Thus, we aimed to assess alterations in the inter-network interactions of these large-scale networks in IGD, and to associate the alterations with IGD-related behaviors.

DMN, ECN and SN were identified using group-level independent component analysis (gICA) in 39 individuals with IGD and 34 age and gender matched healthy controls (HCs). Then alterations in the SN-ECN and SN-DMN connectivity, as well as in the modulation of ECN versus DMN by SN, using a resource allocation index (RAI) developed and validated previously in nicotine addiction, were assessed. Further, associations between these altered network coupling and clinical assessments were also examined.

Compared with HCs, IGD had significantly increased SN-DMN connectivity and decreased RAI in right hemisphere (rRAI), and the rRAI in IGD was negatively associated with their scores of craving.

These findings suggest that the deficient modulation of ECN versus DMN by SN might provide a mechanistic framework to better understand the neural basis of IGD and might provide novel evidence for the triple-network model in IGD.

The present study identified the neural mechanism of risky decision-making in Internet gaming disorder (IGD) under a probability discounting task.

Independent component analysis was used on the functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 19 IGD subjects (22.2 ± 3.08 years) and 21 healthy controls (HC, 22.8 ± 3.5 years).

For the behavioral results, IGD subjects prefer the risky to the fixed options and showed shorter reaction time compared to HC. For the imaging results, the IGD subjects showed higher task-related activity in default mode network (DMN) and less engagement in the executive control network (ECN) than HC when making the risky decisions. Also, we found the activities of DMN correlate negatively with the reaction time and the ECN correlate positively with the probability discounting rates.

The results suggest that people with IGD show altered modulation in DMN and deficit in executive control function, which might be the reason for why the IGD subjects continue to play online games despite the potential negative consequences.

Suicide is a serious and not uncommon consequence of mood disorders that occurs primarily when individuals are depressed. Understanding the neurobiology of suicidal activity (thoughts or behaviors) is likely to facilitate prevention.

Seventy-nine adult depressed mood disorder patients (MDP), of which 25 had attempted suicide at least once, and 66 healthy controls (HC) participated in this study. Resting-state functional MRI was used to identify neural activity differences between suicide attempters (SA) and non-attempters (NA). Specifically, differences were examined in functional connectivity both within and between four large cognitive networks [Executive Control (ECN), Default Mode (DMN), Salience (SN), and Basal Ganglia (BGN)] and their respective associations with suicidal activity.

Compared to HCs, patients had greater posterior DMN activity, but less activity in the BGN, and less low-frequency spectral power in the dorso-medial DMN. Furthermore, increased posterior DMN activity in SA was associated with recent suicidal activity, whereas NA had reduced BGN activity and less dorso-medial DMN spectral power, the latter being associated with lifelong suicidal thinking. SA also had greater activity in midline circuitry compared to both HC and NA, and the pattern of BGN and DMN co-activity differed between SA and NA.

DMN engagement raises the possibility that suicidal activity in mood disorder patients may be a consequence of impaired self-referential thought processing. Furthermore, differential BGN and DMN co-activation according to suicide attempt status suggests that attempting suicide perhaps alters cognitive flexibility. These insights are potentially useful for understanding the neural basis of suicide activity.

Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) showed attentional bias toward gaming-related cues and exhibited impaired executive functions. The purpose of this study was to explore the alternations in related functional brain networks underlying attentional bias in IGD subjects.

Eighteen IGD subjects and 19 healthy controls (HC) were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they were performing an addiction Stroop task. Networks of functional connectivity were identified using group independent component analysis (ICA).

ICA identified 4 functional networks that showed differences between the 2 groups, which were related to the right executive control network and visual related networks in our study. Within the right executive control network, in contrast to controls, IGD subjects showed increased functional connectivity in the temporal gyrus and frontal gyrus, and reduced functional connectivity in the posterior cingulate cortex, temporal gyrus, and frontal gyrus.

These findings suggest that IGD is related to abnormal functional connectivity of the right executive control network, and may be described as addiction-related abnormally increased cognitive control processing and diminished response inhibition during an addiction Stroop task. The results suggest that IGD subjects show increased susceptibility towards gaming-related cues but weakened strength of inhibitory control.

In patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), functional neuroimaging studies have reported an increased activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during executive performance and working memory (WM) processing, and also an increased activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during baseline conditions. However, the functional coupling of these cortical networks during WM processing is less clear.

In this study, we used a verbal WM paradigm, event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and multivariate statistical techniques to explore patterns of functional coupling of temporally dissociable dorsolateral prefrontal and cingulate networks. By means of independent component analyses (ICAs), two components of interest were identified that showed either a positive or a negative temporal correlation with the delay period of the cognitive activation task in both healthy controls and MDD patients.

In a prefronto-parietal network, a decreased functional connectivity pattern was identified in depressed patients comprising inferior parietal, superior prefrontal and frontopolar regions. Within this cortical network, MDD patients additionally revealed a pattern of increased functional connectivity in the left DLPFC and the cerebellum compared to healthy controls. In a second, temporally anti-correlated network, healthy controls exhibited higher connectivity in the ACC, the ventrolateral and the superior prefrontal cortex compared to MDD patients.

These results complement and expand previous functional neuroimaging findings by demonstrating a dysconnectivity of dissociable prefrontal and cingulate regions in MDD patients. A disturbance of these dynamic networks is characterized by a simultaneously increased connectivity of the DLPFC during task-induced activation and increased connectivity of the ACC during task-induced deactivation.