Resting-state functional connectivity abnormalities in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder and their healthy first-degree relatives

• Published in: Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience Vol. 39; no. 5; pp. 304 - 311
• Main Authors: Hou, Jing-Ming, MD, Zhao, Ming, MM, Zhang, Wei, MM, Song, Ling-Heng, MM, Wu, Wen-Jing, MM, Wang, Jian, MD, PhD, Zhou, Dai-Quan, PhD, Xie, Bing, MD, PhD, He, Mei, PhD, Guo, Jun-Wei, MM, Qu, Wei, MD, PhD, Li, Hai-Tao, MD, PhD
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Canada Joule Inc 01-09-2014; CMA Impact, Inc; Canadian Medical Association
• Subjects: Adult; Anxiety; Brain - physiopathology; Brain Mapping; Comorbidity; Endophenotypes; Family; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medical Education; Mental depression; Methods; Neural Pathways - physiopathology; Obsessive compulsive disorder; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - drug therapy; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - epidemiology; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - physiopathology; Physiological aspects; Psychiatry; Research Papers; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Teenagers
• ISSN: 1180-4882; 1488-2434
• DOI: 10.1503/jpn.130220

Background Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common, heritable neuropsychiatric disorder, hypothetically underpinned by dysfunction of brain cortical-striatal-thalamic-cortical (CSTC) circuits; however, the extent of brain functional abnormalities in individuals with OCD is unclear, and the genetic basis of this disorder is poorly understood. We determined the whole brain functional connectivity patterns in patients with OCD and their healthy first-degree relatives. Methods We used resting-state fMRI to measure functional connectivity strength in patients with OCD, their healthy first-degree relatives and healthy controls. Whole brain functional networks were constructed by measuring the temporal correlations of all brain voxel pairs and further analyzed using a graph theory approach. Results We enrolled 39 patients with OCD, 20 healthy first-degree relatives and 39 healthy controls in our study. Compared with healthy controls, patients with OCD showed increased functional connectivity primarily within the CSTC circuits and decreased functional connectivity in the occipital cortex, temporal cortex and cerebellum. Moreover, patients with OCD and their first-degree relatives exhibited overlapping increased functional connectivity strength in the bilateral caudate nucleus, left orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and left middle temporal gyrus. Limitations Potential confounding factors, such as medication use, heterogeneity in symptom clusters and comorbid disorders, may have impacted our findings. Conclusion Our preliminary results suggest that patients with OCD have abnormal resting-state functional connectivity that is not limited to CSTC circuits and involves abnormalities in additional large-scale brain systems, especially the limbic system. Moreover, resting-state functional connectivity strength abnormalities in the left OFC, bilateral caudate nucleus and left middle temporal gyrus may be neuroimaging endophenotypes for OCD.