Relationships between abnormal neural activities and cognitive impairments in patients with drug-naive first-episode schizophrenia

Abstract

Background Prior resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies via the regional homogeneity (ReHo) method have demonstrated inconsistent and conflicting results because of several confounding factors, such as small sample size, medicinal influence, and illness duration. Relationships between ReHo measures and cognitive impairments in patients with drug-naive first-episode schizophrenia (dn-FES) are rarely reported. This study was conducted to explore the correlations between ReHo measures, cognitive deficits, and clinical symptoms in patients with dn-FES. Methods A total of 69 patients with dn-FES and 74 healthy controls were recruited. MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery (MCCB), Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) were used to assess cognitive function, intelligence quotient (IQ), and clinical symptoms, respectively. The correlations between ReHo map and cognitive deficits, the severity of symptoms were examined using strict correlation analyses within brain areas. Results The ReHo values in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and the superior frontal gyrus (SFG) increased in the dn-FES group, whereas the ReHo values in the right cuneus decreased. Correlation analysis showed that the ReHo values in the right MFG were positively correlated with attention/vigilance impairments, social cognition deficits, the severity of clinical manifestations. Conclusions These findings suggested that abnormal spontaneous activities in the right MFG reflect the illness severity and cognitive deficits, which serves as a basis for establishing the objective diagnostic markers and might be a clinical intervention target for patients with schizophrenia.

Alterations in Spontaneous Brain Activity in Drug-Naïve First-Episode Schizophrenia: An Anatomical/Activation Likelihood Estimation Meta-Analysis

“…They are commonly used to identify the local neural activity abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia and are considered to be a reliable imaging marker, but the results may be influenced by medication and duration of illness, thus leading to inconsistent results. 8,[10][11][12][13] For instance, current cross-sectional studies found increased ALFF/fALFF and ReHo in putamen in first-episode schizophrenia, 14,15 while others failed to replicate the above results in chronic patients. 16,17 To the best of our knowledge, a simultaneous meta-analysis of the two measures of spontaneous brain activity based on resting-state fMRI has not been performed.…”

“…Then, after a detailed review of the full texts, 18 datasets of rs-fMRI studies, 1,039 Dn-FES patients, and 1,425 HCs were included in our meta-analysis. 8,10,14,15,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] The sample characteristics and imaging information of the included studies are shown in Table 1 and Figure 1.…”

“…45 In the aspect of Dn-FES, another study showed increased regional functional abnormalities in the frontal lobe. 8 Thus, abnormal spontaneous activity in the frontal lobe may be a reliable biomarker for schizophrenia, and the simultaneous increase and decrease in the spontaneous activity in the frontal lobe may be a compensatory mechanism in the early stages of psychiatric illness. Based on the nature of the study, the results need to be interpreted carefully.…”

“…7 ReHo reflects the synchronization degree of neuronal activity in local brain area indirectly by calculating the consistency of time series between each voxel and adjacent voxels. 8,9 Therefore, the above methods have their own advantages in studying the functional changes of schizophrenia. They are commonly used to identify the local neural activity abnormalities in patients with schizophrenia and are considered to be a reliable imaging marker, but the results may be influenced by medication and duration of illness, thus leading to inconsistent results.…”

Disrupted local functional connectivity in schizophrenia: An updated and extended meta-analysis

“…As shown in Fig. 1, our search strategy initially identified 1816 studies, of which 18 studies were eligible for meta-analysis including a total of 652 patients with schizophrenia and 596 healthy controls [10][11][12][13][14][15][24][25][26][27][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53] . Among these studies, three studies were longitudinal designs, and we only included the results of between-group comparison using baseline data 13,46,51 .…”