Altered Functional Connectivity Within and Between Salience and Sensorimotor Networks in Patients With Functional Constipation

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Zhenzhen Jia¹  Yang Hu¹  Wenchao Zhang¹  Karen M. von Deneen¹  Lei Liu¹  Lei Zhang¹  Yi Zhang¹  Guanya Li¹  Jia Wang¹  Zongxin Tan¹  Shijun Duan²  Guangbin Cui²  Yongzhan Nie³ 

[1] Center for Brain Imaging, School of Life Sciences and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, China;Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, Air Force Medical University, Xi’an, China;State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology, National Clinical Research Center for Digestive Diseases and Xijing Hospital of Digestive Diseases, Air Force Medical University, Xi’an, China;

关键词: functional constipation;    anxiety/depression;    resting-state fMRI;    brain connectome;    graph-theory approach;    modularity;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnins.2021.628880

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Functional constipation (FCon) is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder. A considerable portion of patients with FCon is associated with anxiety/depressive status (FCAD). Previous neuroimaging studies mainly focused on patients with FCon without distinguishing FCAD from FCon patients without anxiety/depressive status (FCNAD). Differences in brain functions between these two subtypes remain unclear. Thus, we employed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) and graph theory method to investigate differences in brain network connectivity and topology in 41 FCAD, 42 FCNAD, and 43 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HCs). FCAD/FCNAD showed significantly lower normalized clustering coefficient and small-world-ness. Both groups showed altered nodal degree/efficiency mainly in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rACC), precentral gyrus (PreCen), supplementary motor area (SMA), and thalamus. In the FCAD group, nodal degree in the SMA was negatively correlated with difficulty of defecation, and abdominal pain was positively correlated with nodal degree/efficiency in the rACC, which had a lower within-module nodal degree. The salience network (SN) exhibited higher functional connectivity (FC) with the sensorimotor network (SMN) in FCAD/FCNAD, and FC between these two networks was negatively correlated with anxiety ratings in FCAD group. Additionally, FC of anterior insula (aINS)–rACC was only correlated with constipation symptom (i.e., abdominal pain) in the FCNAD group. In the FCAD group, FCs of dorsomedial prefrontal cortex–rACC, PreCen–aINS showed correlations with both constipation symptom (i.e., difficulty of defecation) and depressive status. These findings indicate the differences in FC of the SN–SMN between FCAD and FCNAD and provide neuroimaging evidence based on brain function, which portrays important clues for improving new treatment strategies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown