A comparative study of interhemispheric functional connectivity in major depression and schizophrenia

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and schizophrenia (SZ) are serious psychiatric disorders that, despite exhibiting different diagnostic criteria, exhibit significant overlap regarding the biological and clinical features of affected patients. While prior evidence has shown that interhemispheric functional connectivity (FC) is abnormal in MDD and SZ, the particular similarities and differences that unify and characterize MDD and SZ regarding these interhemispheric FC patterns remain to be characterized. This study was thus designed to conduct an in-depth analysis of MDD- and SZ-related patterns of interhemispheric FC.

This study enrolled MDD patients, SZ patients, and normal control (NC) individuals (n = 36 each). Resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI) studies of these patients were conducted, after which voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) was used to analyze the preprocesses rs-fMRI data. The VMHC values in these different values were then compared through one-way ANOVAs and post hoc analyses.

Significant differences were observed in both the striatum and middle frontal gyrus (MFG) when comparing these three groups. Through pairwise comparisons, MDD patients but not SZ patients exhibited reduced MFG VMHC values relative to the NC individuals. Conversely, striatum VMHC values significantly increased in SZ patients relative to NC individuals and MDD patients.

These results support the interhemispheric functional disconnection hypothesis as a basis for the pathogenesis of MDD and SZ. The observed differences in interhemispheric FC in the MFG and striatum of MDD and SZ patients will offer a neuroimaging basis that can aid in the differential diagnosis of these debilitating conditions.