Background: The amygdala is known to be involved in anxiety processing, but its role in the psychopathology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is still unclear.
Aims: In this MRI study we investigated potential alterations in structural and functional connectivity of the amygdala in 42 adult patients with OCD and 37 healthy subjects.
Method: Psychophysiological interaction analysis was used to explore amygdala functional connectivity during a negative affective task. Probabilistic tractography was then employed to study structural connectivity and integrity of underlying white matter fiber tracts.
Results: Compared to controls, OCD patients showed a significantly increased functional connectivity of the left amygdala with mostly parieto-occipital regions during task. No structural connectivity differences could be found between the groups. In addition, only patients showed a significant association between functional and structural connectivity of these regions. Moreover, symptom severity was negatively associated with structural integrity of the underlying white matter tracts.
Conclusions: Present results emphasize the relevance of the amygdala for OCD and may reflect that neuronal alterations in structural connectivity could be associated with functional connectivity alterations in broader networks.
Keywords: DTI; Functional connectivity; OCD; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; SC, structural connectivity; Structural connectivity; WM tract, white matter tract; gPPI; probFT, probabilistic fiber tracking; restFC, resting state functional connectivity; taskFC, task dependent functional connectivity.