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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience
Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 3/2023

03-06-2022 | Schizophrenia | Original Paper

Negative symptoms are associated with modularity and thalamic connectivity in schizophrenia

Authors: Adem Bayrakçı, Nabi Zorlu, Merve Karakılıç, Funda Gülyüksel, Berna Yalınçetin, Elif Oral, Fazıl Gelal, Emre Bora

Published in: European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience | Issue 3/2023

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Abstract

Negative symptoms, including avolition, anhedonia, asociality, blunted affect and alogia are associated with poor long-term outcome and functioning. However, treatment options for negative symptoms are limited and neurobiological mechanisms underlying negative symptoms in schizophrenia are still poorly understood. Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired from 64 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 35 controls. Global and regional network properties and rich club organization were investigated using graph analytical methods. We found that the schizophrenia group had higher modularity, clustering coefficient and characteristic path length, and lower rich connections compared to controls, suggesting highly connected nodes within modules but less integrated with nodes in other modules in schizophrenia. We also found a lower nodal degree in the left thalamus and left putamen in schizophrenia relative to the control group. Importantly, higher modularity was associated with greater negative symptoms but not with cognitive deficits in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia suggesting an alteration in modularity might be specific to overall negative symptoms. The nodal degree of the left thalamus was associated with both negative and cognitive symptoms. Our findings are important for improving our understanding of abnormal white-matter network topology underlying negative symptoms in schizophrenia.
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Metadata
Title
Negative symptoms are associated with modularity and thalamic connectivity in schizophrenia
Authors
Adem Bayrakçı
Nabi Zorlu
Merve Karakılıç
Funda Gülyüksel
Berna Yalınçetin
Elif Oral
Fazıl Gelal
Emre Bora
Publication date
03-06-2022
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Keyword
Schizophrenia
Published in
European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience / Issue 3/2023
Print ISSN: 0940-1334
Electronic ISSN: 1433-8491
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-022-01433-5

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