Altered effective connectivity among core brain networks in patients with bipolar disorder

Bipolar disorder (BD) is increasingly being regarded as a dysconnection syndrome. Functional integration among the three core brain networks - executive control network (ECN), salience network (SN), and default mode network (DMN) - is abnormal in patients with BD; however, the causal relationship among the three networks in BD is largely unknown. It is also unclear whether patients with BD in different mood states show distinct effective connectivity patterns during rest.

Resting-state fMRI data were collected from 65 patients with BD and 85 healthy controls. Spectral dynamic causal modeling was applied to investigate the effective connectivity difference of the three brain networks between all patients with BD and healthy controls and between patients who were in euthymic mood state (euthymic BD) and depressed mood state (depressed BD).

Compared with healthy controls, all patients with BD showed altered effective connectivity within and between the ECN and SN and from these two networks to the DMN. Compared with patients with depressed BD, patients with euthymic BD showed increased excitatory effects within the ECN and decreased inhibitory effects from the SN to the ECN and DMN.

These results further confirmed that patients with BD show abnormal functional integration within and among the three core brain networks, and exhibit similar and different effective connectivity patterns in different mood states. Abnormal effective connectivity has the potential to be a critical index for diagnosing BD and differentiating between BD patients with different mood states.