Neural Correlates of Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Functions: Biological and Psychosocial Risks
Poster No:
491
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Mingzhu Li1, Yang Xiao2, Yuqi Ge1, Huiru Yan3, Xueni Li1, Weihua Yue1, Hao Yan1
Institutions:
1Institute of Mental Health, Peking University Sixth Hospital, Beijing, China, 2Institute of Mental Health, Peking University Sixth Hospital, BeiJing, China, 3Peking University School of Nursing, Beijing, China
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is prevalent among individuals with psychiatric disorders from adolescence to early adulthood (Wolff et al., 2013), constituting a major public health concern. NSSI results from a combination of neurobiological diatheses and psychosocial factors (Nock, 2009), yet, the mechanisms remain insufficiently understood. By examining the neural correlates of NSSI functions, which defined as the reasons for the initiation or persistence of deliberate self-injury (Nock, 2010), we aim to elucidate the neural diatheses of self-injury in psychiatric disorders. It will provide crucial insights for developing effective, targeted interventions.
Methods:
We assessed NSSI functions in 304 inpatients with mental disorders (aged 16–25 years) exhibiting NSSI behavior using the Ottawa Self-Injury Inventory (OSI) and collected resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 163 of them. Primary psychiatric diagnoses included depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and eating disorders. Key factors of self-reported NSSI functions were extracted using orthogonal projection non-negative matrix factorization (Sotiras et al., 2015). We generated a whole-brain functional connections (FC) matrix for each participant, referring to a previous brain parcellation scheme comprising a total of 210 cortical regions (Fan et al., 2016) and 14 subcortical regions (Desikan et al., 2006). Canonical correlation analysis (Buch et al., 2023) identified brain FC associated with each functional factor. We then investigated the FC and psychosocial factors among patients with different NSSI subtypes defined using fuzzy C-means clustering (Bezdek, 2013) based on NSSI function factors. All analyses controlled for age, gender, years of education, suicidal ideation, and suicide attempts.
Results:
Two stable factors underlying NSSI functions were identified: self-related and social-related functional factors (Fig. 1A). The self-related factor was particularly associated with depressive symptoms, especially in affective disorders such as depression and bipolar disorder. The social-related factor was linked to anxiety symptoms, particularly in eating disorders (Fig. 1B). Clustering analysis revealed three NSSI functional subtypes. Subtype 1 was predominantly driven by self-related functions. Subtype 2 was influenced by both self- and social-related functions, with greater exposure to psychosocial risks. Subtype 3 was undifferentiated. No subtype was exclusively driven by social-related functions (Fig. 1C-E). Neuroimaging analyses revealed the biological diathesis underlying different functions. The self-related functional factor was associated with an amygdala-centered cortico-limbic network, particularly in subtype 1, while the social-related factor was linked to frontoparietal and frontotemporal networks, especially in subtype 2 (Fig. 2).
Conclusions:
This study proposes the neural correlates of the "self-social" functions model of NSSI. The neural network of emotional responses constitutes the neurobiological diathesis for the self-related function. Increased exposure to psychosocial risk factors exacerbates NSSI behavior in the social dimensions and is accompanied by alterations in the cognitive-emotional regulation network. These findings highlight the need for tailored psychological and neuromodulatory interventions targeting specific functional subtypes.
·Fig. 1 Factorization of functional factors in non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) and classification of NSSI functional subtypes.
·Fig. 2 Functional connectivity (FC) features correlating with functional factors and subtypes.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia) 1
Emotion, Motivation and Social Neuroscience:
Emotion and Motivation Other 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Connectivity (eg. functional, effective, structural)
Keywords:
Affective Disorders
Emotions
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Other - Non-suicidal self-injury; Motivation; Functional subtype
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Buch, A. M. (2023). Molecular and network-level mechanisms explaining individual differences in autism spectrum disorder. Nature Neuroscience, 26(4), 650–663.
Desikan, R. S. (2006). An automated labeling system for subdividing the human cerebral cortex on MRI scans into gyral based regions of interest. NeuroImage, 31(3), 968–980.
Fan, L. (2016). The Human Brainnetome Atlas: A New Brain Atlas Based on Connectional Architecture. Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 26(8), 3508–3526.
Nock, M. K. (2009). Why Do People Hurt Themselves? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(2), 78–83.
Nock, M. K. (2010). Self-Injury. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6(1), 339–363.
Sotiras, A. (2015). Finding imaging patterns of structural covariance via Non-Negative Matrix Factorization. NeuroImage, 108, 1–16.
Wolff, J. (2013). Cognitive and Social Factors Associated with NSSI and Suicide Attempts in Psychiatrically Hospitalized Adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 41(6), 1005–1013.