Functional magnetic resonance-based study of primary-senior network connectivity in schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder of unknown pathogenesis that causes severe primary perceptual as well as higher cognitive dysfunction. The results of meta-analytic studies of schizophrenia suggest that abnormalities in the interaction between patients’ low-level perceptual and high-level cognitive networks are key to the pathological mechanisms of schizophrenia. To further investigate the dynamic characteristics of primary-senior network connectivity in schizophrenia based on fMRI, patients with schizophrenia and healthy subjects were recruited in this study, and resting-state fMRI data and clinical scales were collected at the Fourth People’s Hospital of Sichuan Province. In this study, the acquired fMRI data were preprocessed, analyzed by independent component analysis, and a dynamic functional connectivity atlas was constructed to identify several states of abnormal connectivity in schizophrenia patients by comparative analysis between groups, revealing the disconnections of the primary-superior network and the key role of the cortical three-core network. The analysis of the results showed that the imbalanced connectivity of the three core cortical networks (i.e., default mode network-synaptic network-central executive network) is an important feature of the abnormalities of the key brain networks in schizophrenia, and that there is also a generalized loss of connectivity between the patients’ primary brain networks (visual network, sensorimotor network) and the higher brain networks. The present study provides evidence of brain networks from a primary-higher brain network perspective, further supporting the existence of “bottom-up” and “top-down” abnormal information interactions in patients with schizophrenia, which lead to complex clinical manifestations. The results of this study resolve the underlying brain network mechanisms in schizophrenia patients from the perspective of dynamic brain networks, and provide research evidence for the development of new techniques such as subsequent clinical treatment and physical interventions. (Abstract)