Altered anterior cingulate cortex functional connectivity in treatment-naïve obsessive-compulsive disorder: a...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Functional Neuroimaging

Background:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a debilitating neuropsychiatric condition.
• Understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of OCD is crucial for developing effective treatments.
• Altered functional brain connectivity is implicated in OCD pathophysiology.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate resting-state functional connectivity (FC) patterns of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in medication-naïve OCD patients.
• To examine the relationship between ACC FC and the severity of OCD symptoms.

Main Methods:

• Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to acquire data from 46 OCD patients and 33 healthy controls.
• Seed-based whole-brain analysis focused on bilateral ACC functional connectivity.
• Pearson's correlation and partial correlation analyses were employed to assess brain-behavior relationships using validated OCD symptom severity scales.

Main Results:

• OCD patients exhibited increased FC in the right insula, right hippocampus, and right fusiform gyrus compared to controls.
• Decreased FC was observed between the ACC and the right supplementary motor area (SMA) and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in OCD patients.
• A significant positive correlation was found between OCD symptom severity (Y-BOCS scores) and the FC strength between the left IFG and ACC.

Conclusions:

• Treatment-naïve OCD patients display distinct ACC functional connectivity alterations.
• These alterations involve brain regions associated with cognitive control, motor planning, and limbic processing.
• The identified left IFG-ACC connectivity-symptom severity relationship may represent a neurobiological marker for OCD.