Mapping Neurodevelopmental Trajectories of Thalamo-Cortical Systems Across the Mental Health Spectra

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.02.1050Get rights and content

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Background

Dysruption of thalamocortical networks - critical for cognitive, sensory, and motor function - has been implicated in the pathophysiology of neurodevelopmental disorders and mechanisms of clinical phenotypes. More specifically, patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder consistently show a combination of thalamic hypo-connectivity with the prefrontal cortex and thalamic hyper-connectivity with the sensorimotor cortex. Critical knowledge gaps remain with respect to the normal developmental

Methods

Using multi-modal neuroimaging data, we assessed the functional connectivity and behavior in healthy and at-risk participants from several large-scale cross-sectional datasets (Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (n=1601, ages 8-21); Cambridge Center for Ageing and Neuroscience (n=656, ages 18-88) and Nathan Kline Institute-Rockland Sample (n=932, ages 6-85)). Whole-brain and seed-based thalamic functional connectivity maps were analyzed for each individual.

Results

Preliminary results identified dimensions of behavioral variation that relates to variation in the global brain connectivity of specific neural systems. Furthermore, our study investigated the association between individual differences in thalamocortical connectivity and executive functions, in order to put forth a mechanistic model of normal variation in cognitive function and cognitive impairment in youth with psychosis spectrum symptoms.

Conclusions

Using this framework, we can refine the neural correlates of psychosis spectrum symptomatology thereby providing the necessary foundation for etiological and dimensional models of psychosis.

Supported By

R01

Keywords

Development, Psychosis, Thalamocortical Connectivity

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