Having social support improves one's health outcomes and self-esteem, and buffers the negative impact of stressors. Previous studies have explored the association between social support and brain activity, but evidence from task-dependent functional connectivity is still limited.

We aimed to explore how gradually decreasing levels of social support influence task-dependent functional connectivity across several major neural networks.

We designed a social support task and recruited 72 young adults from real-life social groups. Of the four members in each group, one healthy participant (18 participants in total) completed the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scan. The fMRI task included three phases with varying levels of social support: high-support phase, fair phase and low-support phase. Functional connectivity changes according to three phases were examined by generalised psychophysiological interaction analysis.

The results of the analysis demonstrated that participants losing expected support showed increased connectivity among salience network, default mood network and frontoparietal network nodes during the fair phase compared with the high-support phase. During the low-support phase, participants showed increased connectivity among only salience network nodes compared with the high-support phase.

The results indicate that the loss of support was perceived as a threat signal and induced widespread increased functional connectivity within brain networks. The observation of significant functional connectivity changes between fair and high-support phases suggests that even a small loss of social support from close ones leads to major changes in brain function.

Alterations in brain functional connectivity (FC) have been frequently reported in adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD). However, there are few studies of dynamic FC analysis, which can provide information about fluctuations in neural activity related to cognition and behavior. The goal of the present study was therefore to investigate the dynamic aspects of FC in adolescent MDD patients.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 94 adolescents with MDD and 78 healthy controls. Independent component analysis, a sliding-window approach, and graph-theory methods were used to investigate the potential differences in dynamic FC properties between the adolescent MDD patients and controls.

Three main FC states were identified, State 1 which was predominant, and State 2 and State 3 which occurred less frequently. Adolescent MDD patients spent significantly more time in the weakly-connected and relatively highly-modularized State 1, spent significantly less time in the strongly-connected and low-modularized State 2, and had significantly higher variability of both global and local efficiency, compared to the controls. Classification of patients with adolescent MDD was most readily performed based on State 1 which exhibited disrupted intra- and inter-network FC involving multiple functional networks.

Our study suggests local segregation and global integration impairments and segregation-integration imbalance of functional networks in adolescent MDD patients from the perspectives of dynamic FC. These findings may provide new insights into the neurobiology of adolescent MDD.

The modulation of brain circuits of emotion is a promising pathway to treat borderline personality disorder (BPD). Precise and scalable approaches have yet to be established. Two studies investigating the amygdala-related electrical fingerprint (Amyg-EFP) in BPD are presented: one study addressing the deep-brain correlates of Amyg-EFP, and a second study investigating neurofeedback (NF) as a means to improve brain self-regulation.

Study 1 combined electroencephalography (EEG) and simultaneous functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the replicability of Amyg-EFP-related brain activation found in the reference dataset (N = 24 healthy subjects, 8 female; re-analysis of published data) in the replication dataset (N = 16 female individuals with BPD). In the replication dataset, we additionally explored how the Amyg-EFP would map to neural circuits defined by the research domain criteria. Study 2 investigated a 10-session Amyg-EFP NF training in parallel to a 12-weeks residential dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) program. Fifteen patients with BPD completed the training, N = 15 matched patients served as DBT-only controls.

Study 1 replicated previous findings and showed significant amygdala blood oxygenation level dependent activation in a whole-brain regression analysis with the Amyg-EFP. Neurocircuitry activation (negative affect, salience, and cognitive control) was correlated with the Amyg-EFP signal. Study 2 showed Amyg-EFP modulation with NF training, but patients received reversed feedback for technical reasons, which limited interpretation of results.

Recorded via scalp EEG, the Amyg-EFP picks up brain activation of high relevance for emotion. Administering Amyg-EFP NF in addition to standardized BPD treatment was shown to be feasible. Clinical utility remains to be investigated.

Excessive negative self-referential processing plays an important role in the development and maintenance of major depressive disorder (MDD). Current measures of self-reflection are limited to self-report questionnaires and invoking imagined states, which may not be suitable for all populations.

The current study aimed to pilot a new measure of self-reflection, the Fake IQ Test (FIQT).

Participants with MDD and unaffected controls completed a behavioural (experiment 1, n = 50) and functional magnetic resonance imaging version (experiment 2, n = 35) of the FIQT.

Behaviourally, those with MDD showed elevated negative self-comparison with others, higher self-dissatisfaction and lower perceived success on the task, compared with controls; however, FIQT scores were not related to existing self-report measures of self-reflection. In the functional magnetic resonance imaging version, greater activation in self-reflection versus control conditions was found bilaterally in the inferior frontal cortex, insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, motor cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. No differences in neural activation were found between participants with MDD and controls, nor were there any associations between neural activity, FIQT scores or self-report measures of self-reflection.

Our results suggest the FIQT is sensitive to affective psychopathology, but a lack of association with other measures of self-reflection may indicate that the task is measuring a different construct. Alternatively, the FIQT may measure aspects of self-reflection inaccessible to current questionnaires. Future work should explore relationships with alternative measures of self-reflection likely to be involved in perception of task performance, such as perfectionism.

The study is aimed to identify brain functional connectomes predictive of depressed and elevated mood symptomatology in individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) using the machine learning approach Connectome-based Predictive Modeling (CPM).

Functional magnetic resonance imaging data were obtained from 81 adults with BD while they performed an emotion processing task. CPM with 5000 permutations of leave-one-out cross-validation was applied to identify functional connectomes predictive of depressed and elevated mood symptom scores on the Hamilton Depression and Young Mania rating scales. The predictive ability of the identified connectomes was tested in an independent sample of 43 adults with BD.

CPM predicted the severity of depressed [concordance between actual and predicted values (r = 0.23, pperm (permutation test) = 0.031) and elevated (r = 0.27, pperm = 0.01) mood. Functional connectivity of left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and supplementary motor area nodes, with inter- and intra-hemispheric connections to other anterior and posterior cortical, limbic, motor, and cerebellar regions, predicted depressed mood severity. Connectivity of left fusiform and right visual association area nodes with inter- and intra-hemispheric connections to the motor, insular, limbic, and posterior cortices predicted elevated mood severity. These networks were predictive of mood symptomatology in the independent sample (r ⩾ 0.45, p = 0.002).

This study identified distributed functional connectomes predictive of depressed and elevated mood severity in BD. Connectomes subserving emotional, cognitive, and psychomotor control predicted depressed mood severity, while those subserving emotional and social perceptual functions predicted elevated mood severity. Identification of these connectome networks may help inform the development of targeted treatments for mood symptoms.

Identifying the optimal treatment for individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) is often a long and complicated process. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have been used to help predict and explain differences in treatment response among individuals with MDD.

We conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis of treatment prediction studies utilizing fMRI in patients with MDD to provide evidence that neural activity can be used to predict response to antidepressant treatment.

A multi-level kernel density analysis was applied to these primary fMRI studies, in which we analyzed brain activation patterns of depressed patients (N= 364) before receiving antidepressant treatment.

The results of this analysis demonstrated that hyperactivity in six brain regions significantly predicted treatment response in patients with MDD: the right anterior cingulate, right cuneus, left fusiform gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, right cingulate gyrus, and left superior frontal gyrus.

This study provides evidence that neural activity, as measured by standard fMRI paradigms, can be used to successfully predict response to antidepressant treatment. This may be used in the future clinically to improve decision-making processes and treatment outcomes for patients.

No significant relationships.

Glutamatergic dysfunction has been implicated in sensory integration deficits in schizophrenia, yet how glutamatergic function contributes to behavioural impairments and neural activities of sensory integration remains unknown.

Fifty schizophrenia patients and 43 healthy controls completed behavioural assessments for sensory integration and underwent magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) for measuring the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) glutamate levels. The correlation between glutamate levels and behavioural sensory integration deficits was examined in each group. A subsample of 20 pairs of patients and controls further completed an audiovisual sensory integration functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) task. Blood Oxygenation Level Dependent (BOLD) activation and task-dependent functional connectivity (FC) were assessed based on fMRI data. Full factorial analyses were performed to examine the Group-by-Glutamate Level interaction effects on fMRI measurements (group differences in correlation between glutamate levels and fMRI measurements) and the correlation between glutamate levels and fMRI measurements within each group.

We found that schizophrenia patients exhibited impaired sensory integration which was positively correlated with ACC glutamate levels. Multimodal analyses showed significantly Group-by-Glutamate Level interaction effects on BOLD activation as well as task-dependent FC in a ‘cortico-subcortical-cortical’ network (including medial frontal gyrus, precuneus, ACC, middle cingulate gyrus, thalamus and caudate) with positive correlations in patients and negative in controls.

Our findings indicate that ACC glutamate influences neural activities in a large-scale network during sensory integration, but the effects have opposite directionality between schizophrenia patients and healthy people. This implicates the crucial role of glutamatergic system in sensory integration processing in schizophrenia.

Aberrant anticipation of motivational salient events and processing of outcome evaluation in striatal and prefrontal regions have been suggested to underlie psychosis. Altered glutamate levels have likewise been linked to schizophrenia. Glutamatergic abnormalities may affect the processing of motivational salience and outcome evaluation. It remains unresolved, whether glutamatergic dysfunction is associated with the coding of motivational salience and outcome evaluation in antipsychotic-naïve patients with first-episode psychosis.

Fifty-one antipsychotic-naïve patients with first-episode psychosis (22 ± 5.2 years, female/male: 31/20) and 52 healthy controls (HC) matched on age, sex, and parental education underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (3T) in one session. Brain responses to motivational salience and negative outcome evaluation (NOE) were examined using a monetary incentive delay task. Glutamate levels were estimated in the left thalamus and anterior cingulate cortex using LCModel.

Patients displayed a positive signal change to NOE in the caudate (p = 0.001) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; p = 0.003) compared to HC. No group difference was observed in motivational salience or in levels of glutamate. There was a different association between NOE signal in the caudate and DLPFC and thalamic glutamate levels in patients and HC due to a negative correlation in patients (caudate: p = 0.004, DLPFC: p = 0.005) that was not seen in HC.

Our findings confirm prior findings of abnormal outcome evaluation as a part of the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. The results also suggest a possible link between thalamic glutamate and NOE signaling in patients with first-episode psychosis.

Numerous studies have demonstrated attentional control difficulties and high avoidance coping in patients with anorexia nervosa. Attention is a critical coping resource because it enables individuals to demonstrate self-control and complete goal-directed behaviours.

We aimed to examine whether attentional control difficulty is related to high avoidance coping, and investigate the neural underpinnings of attentional control difficulties in individuals with anorexia nervosa.

Twenty-three patients with anorexia nervosa and 17 healthy controls completed questionnaires that assessed attention and coping, and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a go/no-go task.

Patients with anorexia nervosa showed weaker attentional control, higher omission error rates and higher avoidance coping compared with healthy controls. Attentional control difficulty was associated with higher avoidance coping in both groups. Functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis showed less deactivation in regions representing internal mental processing, such as the praecuneus, cuneus and left lingual gyrus, during the no-go condition. Moreover, weakened deactivation of the left lingual gyrus was associated with higher commission error rate in the anorexia nervosa group.

Our results suggest that patients with anorexia nervosa may have difficulty in maintaining attention to external ongoing events because of disturbance from internal self-related thought, and support the notion that attentional control difficulties underlie the frequent use of avoidance coping in anorexia nervosa.

Impulsivity is a central symptom of borderline personality disorder (BPD) and its neural basis may be instantiated in a frontoparietal network involved in response inhibition. However, research has yet to determine whether neural activation differences in BPD associated with response inhibition are attributed to attentional saliency, which is subserved by a partially overlapping network of brain regions.

Patients with BPD (n = 45) and 29 healthy controls (HCs; n = 29) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while completing a novel go/no-go task with infrequent odd-ball trials to control for attentional saliency. Contrasts reflecting a combination of response inhibition and attentional saliency (no-go > go), saliency processing alone (oddball > go), and response inhibition controlling for attentional saliency (no-go > oddball) were compared between BPD and HC.

Compared to HC, BPD showed less activation in the combined no-go > go contrast in the right posterior inferior and middle-frontal gyri, and less activation for oddball > go in left-hemispheric inferior frontal junction, frontal pole, superior parietal lobe, and supramarginal gyri. Crucially, BPD and HC showed no activation differences for the no-go > oddball contrast. In BPD, higher vlPFC activation for no-go > go was correlated with greater self-rated BPD symptoms, whereas lower vlPFC activation for oddball > go was associated with greater self-rated attentional impulsivity.

Patients with BPD show frontoparietal disruptions related to the combination of response inhibition and attentional saliency or saliency alone, but no specific response inhibition neural activation difference when attentional saliency is controlled. The findings suggest a neural dysfunction in BPD underlying attention to salient or infrequent stimuli, which is supported by a negative correlation with self-rated impulsiveness.

Inflammation might play a role in bipolar disorder (BD), but it remains unclear the relationship between inflammation and brain structural and functional abnormalities in patients with BD. In this study, we focused on the alterations of functional connectivity (FC), peripheral pro-inflammatory cytokines and their correlations to investigate the role of inflammation in FC in BD depression.

In this study, 42 unmedicated patients with BD II depression and 62 healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled. Resting-state-functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed in all participants and independent component analysis was used. Serum levels of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and Interleukin-8 (IL-8) were measured in all participants. Correlation between FC values and IL-6 and IL-8 levels in BD was calculated.

Compared with the HCs, BD II patients showed decreased FC in the left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) implicating the limbic network and the right precentral gyrus implicating the somatomotor network. BD II showed increased IL-6 (p = 0.039), IL-8 (p = 0.002) levels. Moreover, abnormal FC in the right precentral gyrus were inversely correlated with the IL-8 (r = −0.458, p = 0.004) levels in BD II. No significant correlation was found between FC in the left OFC and cytokines levels.

Our findings that serum IL-8 levels are associated with impaired FC in the right precentral gyrus in BD II patients suggest that inflammation might play a crucial role in brain functional abnormalities in BD.

Accumulating studies have found structural and functional abnormalities of the striatum in bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). However, changes in intrinsic brain functional connectivity dynamics of striato-cortical circuitry have not been investigated in BD and MDD. This study aimed to investigate the shared and specific patterns of dynamic functional connectivity (dFC) variability of striato-cortical circuitry in BD and MDD.

Brain resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 128 patients with unmedicated BD II (current episode depressed), 140 patients with unmedicated MDD, and 132 healthy controls (HCs). Six pairs of striatum seed regions were selected: the ventral striatum inferior (VSi) and the ventral striatum superior (VSs), the dorsal-caudal putamen (DCP), the dorsal-rostral putamen (DRP), and the dorsal caudate and the ventral-rostral putamen (VRP). The sliding-window analysis was used to evaluate dFC for each seed.

Both BD II and MDD exhibited increased dFC variability between the left DRP and the left supplementary motor area, and between the right VRP and the right inferior parietal lobule. The BD II had specific increased dFC variability between the right DCP and the left precentral gyrus compared with MDD and HCs. The MDD had increased dFC variability between the left VSi and the left medial prefrontal cortex compared with BD II and HCs.

The patients with BD and MDD shared common dFC alteration in the dorsal striatal-sensorimotor and ventral striatal-cognitive circuitries. The patients with MDD had specific dFC alteration in the ventral striatal-affective circuitry.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is the most effective antidepressant treatment for severe depression. Although recent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have consistently reported ECT-induced hippocampal volume increases, most studies did not find the association of the hippocampal volume changes with clinical improvement. To understand the underlying mechanisms of ECT action, we aimed to identify the longitudinal effects of ECT on hippocampal functional connectivity (FC) and their associations with clinical improvement.

Resting-state functional MRI was acquired before and after bilateral ECT in 27 depressed individuals. A priori hippocampal seed-based FC analysis and a data-driven multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) were conducted to investigate FC changes associated with clinical improvement. The statistical threshold was set at cluster-level false discovery rate-corrected p < 0.05.

Depressive symptom improvement after ECT was positively associated with the change in the right hippocampus-ventromedial prefrontal cortex FC, and negatively associated with the right hippocampus-superior frontal gyrus FC. MVPA confirmed the results of hippocampal seed-based analyses and identified the following additional clusters associated with clinical improvement following ECT: the thalamus, the sensorimotor cortex, and the precuneus.

ECT-induced change in the right frontotemporal connectivity and thalamocortical connectivity, and changes in the nodes of the default mode network were associated with clinical improvement. Modulation of these networks may explain the underlying mechanisms by which ECT exert its potent and rapid antidepressant effect.

Although trauma-focused cognitive behavior therapy (TF-CBT) is the frontline treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), one-third of patients are treatment non-responders. To identify neural markers of treatment response to TF-CBT when participants are reappraising aversive material.

This study assessed PTSD patients (n = 37) prior to TF-CBT during functional magnetic brain resonance imaging (fMRI) when they reappraised or watched traumatic images. Patients then underwent nine sessions of TF-CBT, and were then assessed for symptom severity on the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale. FMRI responses for cognitive reappraisal and emotional reactivity contrasts of traumatic images were correlated with the reduction of PTSD severity from pretreatment to post-treatment.

Symptom improvement was associated with decreased activation of the left amygdala during reappraisal, but increased activation of bilateral amygdala and hippocampus during emotional reactivity prior to treatment. Lower connectivity of the left amygdala to the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex, and right insula, and that between the left hippocampus and right amygdala were also associated with symptom improvement.

These findings provide evidence that optimal treatment response to TF-CBT involves the capacity to engage emotional networks during emotional processing, and also to reduce the engagement of these networks when down-regulating emotions.