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. 2022 Dec 6:13:999384.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.999384. eCollection 2022.

Segmental abnormalities of superior longitudinal fasciculus microstructure in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: An automated fiber quantification tractography study

Feiyu Xu  1   2 , Chengliang Jin  1   2 , Tiantian Zuo  2   3 , Ruzhan Wang  2 , Ying Yang  2   3 , Kangcheng Wang  4
Affiliations

Segmental abnormalities of superior longitudinal fasciculus microstructure in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: An automated fiber quantification tractography study

Feiyu Xu et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Introduction: Superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) is a white matter (WM) tract that connects the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes. SLF integrity has been widely assessed in neuroimaging studies of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia (SZ), bipolar disorder (BD), and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, prior studies have revealed inconsistent findings and comparisons across disorders have not been fully examined.

Methods: Here, we obtained data for 113 patients (38 patients with SZ, 40 with BD, 35 with ADHD) and 94 healthy controls from the UCLA Consortium for Neuropsychiatric Phenomic LA5c dataset. We assessed the integrity of 20 major WM tracts with a novel segmentation method by automating fiber tract quantification (AFQ). The AFQ divides each tract into 100 equal parts along the direction of travel, with fractional anisotropy (FA) of each part taken as a characteristic. Differences in FA among the four groups were examined.

Results: Compared to healthy controls, patients with SZ showed significantly lower FA in the second half (51-100 parts) of the SLF. No differences were found between BD and healthy controls, nor between ADHD and healthy controls. Results also demonstrated that patients with SZ showed FA reduction in the second half of the SLF relative to patients with BP. Moreover, greater FA in patients in SLF was positively correlated with the manic-hostility score of the Brief Psychiatry Rating scale.

Discussion: These findings indicated that differences in focal changes in SLF might be a key neurobiological abnormality contributing to characterization of these psychiatric disorders.

Keywords: ADHD; automated fiber quantification; bipolar disorder; schizophrenia; superior longitudinal fasciculus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Location of the left and right superior longitudinal fasciculus showing in the brain.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The plots of fractional anisotropy (FA) profiles of bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus from healthy control individuals and patient subgroups.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Curve-trajectory plots represent the mean fractional anisotropy (FA) along the left and right superior longitudinal fasciculus in schizophrenia (SZ) vs. bipolar disorder (BD).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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