A Common Network of Emotional Processing Recovery Across Four Psychiatric Disorders.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Abnormal emotional processing is a core deficit in psychiatric disorders, targeted by pharmacotherapy.
• Neuroimaging findings for emotion processing recovery (EPR) are currently heterogeneous, hindering therapeutic development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To reconcile heterogeneous neuroimaging findings of pharmacotherapy-induced EPR into a common brain network.
• To validate this network using longitudinal patient data and assess its generalizability across treatment modalities.

Main Methods:

• A meta-analysis of 23 neuroimaging studies (n=652) on pharmacotherapy-induced EPR in four psychiatric disorders.
• Therapeutic network mapping approach applied to functional connectome data.
• Longitudinal fMRI and emotion data from 213 patients were collected for clinical validation.

Main Results:

• Identified 208 brain activation coordinates for EPR, reconciled into a common network anchored in the bilateral insula and putamen.
• This EPR network aligned with psychiatric genetic and neurotransmitter features, generalized to electroconvulsive therapy but not psychotherapy.
• Effective emotional treatment targets were co-localized with this network; enhanced functional connectivity predicted emotional improvement.

Conclusions:

• Heterogeneous EPR findings across psychiatric disorders can be unified within a common brain network.
• This transdiagnostic EPR network offers a potential foundation for developing novel emotion-focused treatments.