title: Differential alterations of resting-state functional connectivity in generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder.
abstract: Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder (PD) are most common anxiety disorders with high lifetime prevalence while the pathophysiology and disease-specific alterations still remain largely unclear. Few studies have taken a whole-brain perspective in the functional connectivity (FC) analysis of these two disorders in resting state. It limits the ability to identify regionally and psychopathologically specific network abnormalities with their subsequent use as diagnostic marker and novel treatment strategy. The whole brain FC using a novel FC metric was compared, that is, scaled correlation, which they demonstrated to be a reliable FC statistics, but have higher statistical power in two-sample t-test of whole brain FC analysis. About 21 GAD and 18 PD patients were compared with 22 matched control subjects during resting-state, respectively. It was found that GAD patients demonstrated increased FC between hippocampus/parahippocampus and fusiform gyrus among the most significantly changed FC, while PD was mainly associated with greater FC between somatosensory cortex and thalamus. Besides such regional specificity, it was observed that psychopathological specificity in that the disrupted FC pattern in PD and GAD correlated with their respective symptom severity. The findings suggested that the increased FC between hippocampus/parahippocampus and fusiform gyrus in GAD were mainly associated with a fear generalization related neural circuit, while the greater FC between somatosensory cortex and thalamus in PD were more likely linked to interoceptive processing. Due to the observed regional and psychopathological specificity, their findings bear important clinical implications for the potential treatment strategy.
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Huiru
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.|Department of Radiology, Jinling Hospital of Nanjing, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yicen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Tongji Hospital of Tongji University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qingwei
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Lanlan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jianqi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jijun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Centre for Computational Systems Biology, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.|Department of Computer Science, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.|Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.|Shanghai Center for Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Jianfeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Chunbo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute of Mental Health Research, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada.|Centre for Cognition and Brain Disorders, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, People's Republic of China.|Centre for Brain and Consciousness, Taipei Medical University (TMU), Taipei, Taiwan.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Northoff
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D016584:Panic Disorder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology*; D012146:Rest
keywords: anxiety disorders; fear; functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); generalization; interoception; whole brain functional connectivity analysis