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Decreased Broca-left supplementary motor area connectivity underlying auditory verbal hallucination: A resting-state
Zetao Huang1, Yingding Ma1, Jiuju Wang1
1Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, China.
Background:
Despite decades of research, the underlying mechanism of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), a core symptom of schizophrenia, remain unclear. Previous studies have tried to capture the neural activity during AVH episodes, whereas trait features of AVH have been less investigated. To address this gap, we employed functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate the neuroimaging patterns in healthy controls (HCs), patients with schizophrenia with a history of AVH (AVHh+) and those without a history of AVH history (AVHh-). We hypothesized that significant differences of functional connectivity (FC) changes would be observed in AVHh+.
Method:
We recruited 23 AVHh+, 16 AVHh-, and 17 matched HCs. Participants underwent an 8-minute resting-state fNIRS scanning. Data processing and analysis were conducted by the NirSpark software (HuiChuang, China) package and R Studio.
Result:
Compared to the AVHh-, the AVHh+ showed significantly lower FC between the Broca's area and the left supplementary motor area (SMA).
Conclusion:
The hypoconnectivity of Broca-left SMA circuit might serve as a trait-like marker of vulnerability to AVH.
