Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2020 Jun 15;87(12):1022-1034.
doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.04.022. Epub 2019 Apr 30.

Mapping Cortical and Subcortical Asymmetry in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Findings From the ENIGMA Consortium

Xiang-Zhen Kong  1 , Premika S W Boedhoe  2 , Yoshinari Abe  3 , Pino Alonso  4 , Stephanie H Ameis  5 , Paul D Arnold  6 , Francesca Assogna  7 , Justin T Baker  8 , Marcelo C Batistuzzo  9 , Francesco Benedetti  10 , Jan C Beucke  11 , Irene Bollettini  10 , Anushree Bose  12 , Silvia Brem  13 , Brian P Brennan  8 , Jan Buitelaar  14 , Rosa Calvo  15 , Yuqi Cheng  16 , Kang Ik K Cho  17 , Sara Dallaspezia  10 , Damiaan Denys  18 , Benjamin A Ely  19 , Jamie Feusner  20 , Kate D Fitzgerald  21 , Jean-Paul Fouche  22 , Egill A Fridgeirsson  23 , David C Glahn  24 , Patricia Gruner  25 , Deniz A Gürsel  26 , Tobias U Hauser  27 , Yoshiyuki Hirano  28 , Marcelo Q Hoexter  9 , Hao Hu  29 , Chaim Huyser  30 , Anthony James  31 , Fern Jaspers-Fayer  32 , Norbert Kathmann  11 , Christian Kaufmann  11 , Kathrin Koch  26 , Masaru Kuno  28 , Gerd Kvale  33 , Jun Soo Kwon  34 , Luisa Lazaro  35 , Yanni Liu  21 , Christine Lochner  36 , Paulo Marques  37 , Rachel Marsh  38 , Ignacio Martínez-Zalacaín  39 , David Mataix-Cols  40 , Sarah E Medland  41 , José M Menchón  4 , Luciano Minuzzi  42 , Pedro S Moreira  37 , Astrid Morer  35 , Pedro Morgado  37 , Akiko Nakagawa  28 , Takashi Nakamae  3 , Tomohiro Nakao  43 , Janardhanan C Narayanaswamy  12 , Erika L Nurmi  20 , Joseph O'Neill  20 , Jose C Pariente  44 , Chris Perriello  45 , John Piacentini  20 , Fabrizio Piras  7 , Federica Piras  7 , Christopher Pittenger  25 , Y C Janardhan Reddy  12 , Oana Georgiana Rus-Oswald  46 , Yuki Sakai  47 , Joao R Sato  48 , Lianne Schmaal  49 , H Blair Simpson  50 , Noam Soreni  51 , Carles Soriano-Mas  52 , Gianfranco Spalletta  53 , Emily R Stern  54 , Michael C Stevens  55 , S Evelyn Stewart  56 , Philip R Szeszko  57 , David F Tolin  58 , Aki Tsuchiyagaito  59 , Daan van Rooij  14 , Guido A van Wingen  23 , Ganesan Venkatasubramanian  12 , Zhen Wang  60 , Je-Yeon Yun  61 ; ENIGMA OCD Working Group; Paul M Thompson  62 , Dan J Stein  63 , Odile A van den Heuvel  2 , Clyde Francks  64
Collaborators, Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Mapping Cortical and Subcortical Asymmetry in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Findings From the ENIGMA Consortium

Xiang-Zhen Kong et al. Biol Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: Lateralized dysfunction has been suggested in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, it is currently unclear whether OCD is characterized by abnormal patterns of brain structural asymmetry. Here we carried out what is by far the largest study of brain structural asymmetry in OCD.

Methods: We studied a collection of 16 pediatric datasets (501 patients with OCD and 439 healthy control subjects), as well as 30 adult datasets (1777 patients and 1654 control subjects) from the OCD Working Group within the ENIGMA (Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta Analysis) Consortium. Asymmetries of the volumes of subcortical structures, and of measures of regional cortical thickness and surface areas, were assessed based on T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging scans, using harmonized image analysis and quality control protocols. We investigated possible alterations of brain asymmetry in patients with OCD. We also explored potential associations of asymmetry with specific aspects of the disorder and medication status.

Results: In the pediatric datasets, the largest case-control differences were observed for volume asymmetry of the thalamus (more leftward; Cohen's d = 0.19) and the pallidum (less leftward; d = -0.21). Additional analyses suggested putative links between these asymmetry patterns and medication status, OCD severity, or anxiety and depression comorbidities. No significant case-control differences were found in the adult datasets.

Conclusions: The results suggest subtle changes of the average asymmetry of subcortical structures in pediatric OCD, which are not detectable in adults with the disorder. These findings may reflect altered neurodevelopmental processes in OCD.

Keywords: Brain asymmetry; Laterality; Mega-analysis; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Pallidum; Thalamus.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Disclosures

The authors declare no conflicts of interest except for the authors below:

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Effect size (Cohen’s d) distributions for diagnosis on regional AIs in the pediatric (left) and adult (right) data.
In terms of cortical asymmetries in the pediatric data, no significant case-control differences in the global hemispheric AI for either cortical thickness or surface area were found (ps >0.40). Regionally, only one AI showed a nominally significant effect (i.e. prior to multiple testing correction) of diagnosis, which was for thickness asymmetry of the lateral occipital cortex (greater rightward asymmetry in OCD patients; t = −2.08, p = 0.038, d = −0.14; Figure 2). This did not survive multiple testing correction. No other AIs in case-control comparisons within the pediatric data showed significant effects (uncorrected ps >0.05).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.. Subcortical structures showing altered volumetric asymmetry in pediatric OCD patients: the thalamus and the pallidum.
The violin plots show the distributions and group differences of the volume asymmetry (A) and the lateral volume measures (in mm3) in each hemisphere (B) for the thalamus and the pallidum. Note that the main analyses were based on linear mixed-effect modelling with ‘dataset’ as a random-effect term, whereas data are plotted here without correction for the ‘dataset’ variable, for display purposes only.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Ruscio AM, Stein DJ, Chiu WT, Kessler RC (2010): The epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Mol Psychiatry. 15:53–63. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wittchen HU, Jacobi F (2005): Size and burden of mental disorders in Europe--a critical review and appraisal of 27 studies. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol. 15:357–376. - PubMed
    1. Nestadt G, Samuels J, Riddle M, Bienvenu OJ 3rd, Liang KY, LaBuda M, et al. (2000): A family study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 57:358–363. - PubMed
    1. Pauls DL, Abramovitch A, Rauch SL, Geller DA (2014): Obsessive-compulsive disorder: an integrative genetic and neurobiological perspective. Nat Rev Neurosci. 15:410–424. - PubMed
    1. Geschwind DH, Flint J (2015): Genetics and genomics of psychiatric disease. Science. 349:1489–1494. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types