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. 2016 Dec 10:13:246-255.
doi: 10.1016/j.nicl.2016.12.007. eCollection 2017.

Functional and structural connectivity of the amygdala in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Oana Georgiana Rus  1 , Tim Jonas Reess  1 , Gerd Wagner  2 , Claus Zimmer  3 , Michael Zaudig  4 , Kathrin Koch  1
Affiliations

Functional and structural connectivity of the amygdala in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Oana Georgiana Rus et al. Neuroimage Clin. .

Abstract

Background: The amygdala is known to be involved in anxiety processing, but its role in the psychopathology of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is still unclear.

Aims: In this MRI study we investigated potential alterations in structural and functional connectivity of the amygdala in 42 adult patients with OCD and 37 healthy subjects.

Method: Psychophysiological interaction analysis was used to explore amygdala functional connectivity during a negative affective task. Probabilistic tractography was then employed to study structural connectivity and integrity of underlying white matter fiber tracts.

Results: Compared to controls, OCD patients showed a significantly increased functional connectivity of the left amygdala with mostly parieto-occipital regions during task. No structural connectivity differences could be found between the groups. In addition, only patients showed a significant association between functional and structural connectivity of these regions. Moreover, symptom severity was negatively associated with structural integrity of the underlying white matter tracts.

Conclusions: Present results emphasize the relevance of the amygdala for OCD and may reflect that neuronal alterations in structural connectivity could be associated with functional connectivity alterations in broader networks.

Keywords: DTI; Functional connectivity; OCD; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; SC, structural connectivity; Structural connectivity; WM tract, white matter tract; gPPI; probFT, probabilistic fiber tracking; restFC, resting state functional connectivity; taskFC, task dependent functional connectivity.

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Left section: Construction of ROI. (left images) Amygdala activation cluster resulting from one-sample t-tests (p < 0.05, FWE corrected at voxel level) for the contrast “negative affective vs. neutral pictures” in OCD patients (top) and in controls (bottom). (right image) Amygdala seed ROI for the connectivity analyses (i.e., intersection of group specific activation clusters). Middle section: Functional connectivity analysis results. Brain regions showing increased taskFC (negative affective vs. neutral pictures) with the amygdala separately in both groups (first two rows) and in group contrast last row: (top row) brain regions (bilateral occipital, parietal areas) showing an increased taskFC with the left and right amygdala in the patient group. (middle row) no significant increase in taskFC of left amygdala in the control group (right). (bottom row) brain regions showing an increased taskFC with the left amygdala in OCD patients compared to controls. Color bar represents t-values (p < 0.05, FDR corrected at voxel level). Marked in green is the target cluster for the probabilistic fiber tracking. Shown is the left side (slice: x = − 26). No differences in taskFC of the right amygdala between the groups. Right section: Results from the probabilistic fiber tracking analysis. (left image) intersection ROIs used for the analysis (i.e., probFT analysis) for both groups (seed ROI marked in blue, target ROI marked in green). (right image) output images from the probFT in individual space. Shown are the WM tracts connecting the seed ROI amygdala (marked in blue) with the target ROI (marked in green) in sagittal and axial orientation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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