Altered brain functional networks in schizophrenia with persistent negative symptoms: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

Tingting Zhu; Zengxiu Wang; Weifeng Wu; Yuru Ling; Zixu Wang; Chao Zhou; Xinyu Fang; Chengbing Huang; Chunming Xie; Jiu Chen; Xiangrong Zhang

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2023.1204632

Altered brain functional networks in schizophrenia with persistent negative symptoms: an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis

Front Hum Neurosci. 2023 Oct 26:17:1204632. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2023.1204632. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Tingting Zhu^{1

2}, Zengxiu Wang³, Weifeng Wu³, Yuru Ling², Zixu Wang², Chao Zhou², Xinyu Fang², Chengbing Huang^{1

2}, Chunming Xie⁴, Jiu Chen⁵, Xiangrong Zhang^{2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, The Third People's Hospital of Huai'an, Huaian, Jiangsu, China.
² Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
³ Department of Hepatology, The Second Hospital of Nanjing, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
⁴ Department of Neurology, Affiliated Zhongda Hospital, School of Medicine Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
⁵ Institute of Neuropsychiatry, The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
⁶ The Affiliated Xuzhou Oriental Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate brain structural and functional characteristics of three brain functional networks including default mode network (DMN), central executive network (CEN), and salience network (SN) in persistent negative symptoms (PNS) patients.

Methods: We performed an activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of functional connectivity (FC) studies and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) studies to detect specific structural and functional alterations of brain networks between PNS patients and healthy controls.

Results: Seventeen VBM studies and twenty FC studies were included. In the DMN, PNS patients showed decreased gray matter in the bilateral medial frontal gyrus and left anterior cingulate gyrus and a significant reduction of FC in the right precuneus. Also, PNS patients had a decrease of gray matter in the left inferior parietal lobules and medial frontal gyrus, and a significant reduction of FC in the bilateral superior frontal gyrus in the CEN. In comparison with healthy controls, PNS patients exhibited reduced gray matter in the bilateral insula, anterior cingulate gyrus, left precentral gyrus and right claustrum and lower FC in these brain areas in the SN, including the left insula, claustrum, inferior frontal gyrus and extra-nuclear.

Conclusion: This meta-analysis reveals brain structural and functional imaging alterations in the three networks and the interaction among these networks in PNS patients, which provides neuroscientific evidence for more personalized treatment.Systematic Review RegistrationThe PROSPERO (https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/PROSPERO/, registration number: CRD42022335962).

Keywords: central executive network; default mode network; functional connectivity; gray matter volume; persistent negative symptoms; salience network.

Publication types

Systematic Review

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFC1314300), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81971255 and 82101572), the Social Development Foundation of Jiangsu Province, China (No. BE2019610), the Jiangsu Provincial Medical Talent Project of China (No. ZDRCA2016075), the Special Project of Basic Research on Frontier Leading Technology of Jiangsu Province, China (No. BK20192004D), the Key Project supported by Medical Science and Technology Development Foundation, Nanjing Department of Health (No. YKK20090), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81701675), the Key Project supported by Medical Science and technology development Foundation, Nanjing Department of Health (No. JQX18005), the Key Research and Development Plan (Social Development) Project of Jiangsu Province (No. BE2018608), the Top-Notch Talent Program of the Jiangsu Province High-Level Healthcare Talent “Six-Ones” Project (No. LGY2020058), and the Science and Technology Development Program of Nanjing Medical University (No. NMUB2019107).