Task-based functional organization and information transmission in schizophrenia via infra-slow fMRI
Poster No:
1427
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Yeongseon Choi1, Duho Sihn1, Sung-Phil Kim1
Institutions:
1Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, Ulsan, Korea, Repulic of
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Studies have reported altered functional connectivity in the brain of patients with schizophrenia, particularly during resting-state. However, whether such altered brain connectivity holds true when performing perceptual tasks remains elusive. This study aims to address this question by analyzing infra-slow activity (ISA, 0.01–0.1 Hz) of BOLD signals, which is known to reflect information transmission (Glerean et al., 2012) across brain networks. Specifically, we aim to characterize functional organization and information transmission in patients with schizophrenia by investigating the principal gradients (Margulies et al., 2016) and the phase shifts (Raut et al., 2024) of BOLD ISA during the performance of an auditory perceptual task.
Methods:
This study utilized an openly available dataset (Healthy Control, n = 25; Schizophrenia, n = 46) (Soler-Vidal et al., 2022). Inside the scanner, participants performed 4 different listening tasks: spoken words, spoken sentences, unintelligible reversedspeech, and low-level white-noise. Analyses were performed on these four individual conditions as well as on the entire task performance, resulting in a total of five conditions.
After preprocessing, the mean BOLD time series of each parcel was extracted where parcels were predefined based on Schaefer400 atlas (Schaefer et al., 2018). The parcel-mean signals were band-pass filtered to 0.01-0.1 Hz to extract ISA. We defined an epoch to inspect task dependent ISA, where a 6-sec delay was added to each stimulus onset to account for the delay of hemodynamic responses.
We calculated the principal gradient with reference to Margulies et al., 2016. The phase shift was calculated for each parcel as the phase difference between the parcel signal and the global signal, where the global signal was defined as the average BOLD ISA across all parcels. The statistical testing of phase shift between the groups was conducted using the Watson-Williams test, followed by false discovery rate (FDR) correction (alpha < 0.05). Finally, the phase shift differences were calculated as the difference between the group-averaged phase shifts, by subtracting the HC group-averaged phase shift from the SCHZ group-averaged phase shift.
After preprocessing, the mean BOLD time series of each parcel was extracted where parcels were predefined based on Schaefer400 atlas (Schaefer et al., 2018). The parcel-mean signals were band-pass filtered to 0.01-0.1 Hz to extract ISA. We defined an epoch to inspect task dependent ISA, where a 6-sec delay was added to each stimulus onset to account for the delay of hemodynamic responses.
We calculated the principal gradient with reference to Margulies et al., 2016. The phase shift was calculated for each parcel as the phase difference between the parcel signal and the global signal, where the global signal was defined as the average BOLD ISA across all parcels. The statistical testing of phase shift between the groups was conducted using the Watson-Williams test, followed by false discovery rate (FDR) correction (alpha < 0.05). Finally, the phase shift differences were calculated as the difference between the group-averaged phase shifts, by subtracting the HC group-averaged phase shift from the SCHZ group-averaged phase shift.
Results:
The principal gradient analysis revealed distinct functional organization patterns between the groups (Figure 1). In the HC group, the Brodmann area (BA) 21-22 and BA 3-4 exhibited opposing gradient values, indicating their positions at opposite ends of the gradient spectrum. In contrast, the SCHZ group showed opposing gradient values between BA21-22 and BA10-11.
The phase shift analysis identified the regions with significant phase shift differences between the HC and SCHZ groups (q<0.05, Watson-Williams test with FDR correction). Especially, during the white-noise condition, substantial differences between the HC and SCHZ groups were observed in BA3, 4, 6, 24, and 32 (Figure 2).
The phase shift analysis identified the regions with significant phase shift differences between the HC and SCHZ groups (q<0.05, Watson-Williams test with FDR correction). Especially, during the white-noise condition, substantial differences between the HC and SCHZ groups were observed in BA3, 4, 6, 24, and 32 (Figure 2).
·Figure 1. Principal gradient maps to represent functional organization
·Figure 2. Phase difference maps to represent information transmission
Conclusions:
In this study, we observed distinct differences in principal gradients and phase shift order between HC and SCHZ during the auditory perceptual task. HC exhibited a principal gradient anchored at one end by regions such as BA3 and 4 and at the other end by BA 21 and 22. In contrast, SCHZ showed a principal gradient with its extremes shifting to BA10 and 11 and BA 21 and 22. This indicated contrasting characteristics of functional organization between the groups, while performing the same task. While listening to white-noise, BA3 and 4 in SCHZ exhibited faster responses compared to HC, while BA 24, 32 associated with cognitive function and emotional control showed slower responses in the SCHZ. This study suggests that functional organization and information transmission in the brain differ between healthy individuals and patients with schizophrenia during the perceptual task.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia) 2
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Activation (eg. BOLD task-fMRI)
fMRI Connectivity and Network Modeling 1
Perception, Attention and Motor Behavior:
Attention: Auditory/Tactile/Motor
Keywords:
FUNCTIONAL MRI
Hearing
Perception
Schizophrenia
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Was this research conducted in the United States?
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
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Provide references using APA citation style.
Margulies, D. S. (2016). Situating the default-mode network along a principal gradient of macroscale cortical organization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(44), 12574–12579.
Raut, R. V. (2024). Global waves synchronize the brain’s functional systems with fluctuating arousal. Science Advances, 7(30), eabf2709.
Schaefer, A. (2018). Local-global parcellation of the human cerebral cortex from intrinsic functional connectivity MRI. Cerebral Cortex, 28(9), 3095–3114.
Soler-Vidal, J. (2022). Brain correlates of speech perception in schizophrenia patients with and without auditory hallucinations. PLOS ONE, 17(12), e0276975.