Static and dynamic alterations of local brain activity in schizophrenia and associations with clinical symptoms and...

Most neuroimaging studies in schizophrenia (SCZ) focus on static brain activity, with limited attention to its temporal dynamics. We hypothesized that integrating static and dynamic measures of local neural activity would reveal complementary alterations associated with clinical symptoms and cognitive deficits in SCZ.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired from 63 SCZ patients and 46 healthy controls. Static and dynamic regional homogeneity (s/dReHo) and fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (s/dfALFF) were calculated. Partial correlation analyses examined associations between altered imaging metrics, symptoms severity (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale), and cognitive performance (MATRICS Consensus Cognitive Battery).

SCZ patients exhibited reduced static and dynamic local activity in sensorimotor, visual, and middle temporal regions, alongside increased activity in the striatum, superior frontal gyrus, hippocampus, and temporal pole (all p_voxel < 0.001, p_cluster < 0.05, GRF corrected). dfALFF in the postcentral gyrus was negatively associated with negative symptoms (r = -0.333, p = 0.048). General psychopathology was positively associated with sfALFF in the putamen (r = 0.287, p = 0.048) and both sReHo (r = 0.314, p = 0.048) and dReHo (r = 0.312, p = 0.048) in the temporal pole. Additionally, sReHo in the middle temporal gyrus was positively associated with visual learning (r = 0.330, p = 0.042), while dReHo in the temporal pole was negatively associated with verbal learning (r = -0.398, p = 0.042).

Integrating static and dynamic indices reveals dissociable patterns of local brain dysfunction in SCZ, linking sensorimotor and striatal-temporal abnormalities to specific symptom dimensions and cognitive deficits.