title: Distinct inter-hemispheric dysconnectivity in schizophrenia patients with and without auditory verbal hallucinations.
abstract: Evidence from behavioral, electrophysiological and diffusion-weighted imaging studies suggest that schizophrenia patients suffer from deficiencies in bilateral brain communication, and this disruption may be related to the occurrence of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH). To increase our understanding of aberrant inter-hemispheric communication in relation to AVH, we recruited two groups of first-episode schizophrenia patients: one group with AVH (N = 18 AVH patients) and one without hallucinations (N = 18 Non-AVH patients), and 20 healthy controls. All participants received T1 structural imaging and resting-state fMRI scanning. We adopted a newly developed index, voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC), to quantitatively describe bilateral functional connectivity. The whole-brain VMHC measure was compared among the three groups and correlation analyses were conducted between symptomology scores and neurological measures. Our findings suggest all patients shared abnormalities in parahippocampus and striatum. Aberrant bilateral connectivity of default mode network (DMN), inferior frontal gyrus and cerebellum only showed in AVH patients, whereas aberrances in superior temporal gyrus and precentral gyrus were specific to Non-AVH patients. Meanwhile, inter-hemispheric connectivity of DMN correlated with patients' symptomatology scores. This study corroborates that schizophrenia is characterized by inter-hemispheric dysconnectivity, and suggests the localization of such abnormalities may be crucial to whether auditory verbal hallucinations develop.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Psychology, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.|Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Xiao
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yi-Bin
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Xi
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Long-Biao
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hua-Ning
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences Research Center, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710126, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jin-Bo
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences Research Center, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Xidian University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710126, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Yuan-Qiang
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Psychology, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Brain Center Rudolf Magnus, Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Guusje
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Collin
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xi
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Shun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Qi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qing-Rong
authors.initials: QR
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Psychology, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Dan-Min
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Miao
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, The Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, 710032, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006212:Hallucinations / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D055815:Young Adult