Static and temporal dynamic changes of intrinsic brain activity in early-onset and adult-onset schizophrenia: a fMRI study of interaction effects

Jingli Chen; Yarui Wei; Kangkang Xue; Xinyu Gao; Mengzhe Zhang; Shaoqiang Han; Baohong Wen; Guangyu Wu; Jingliang Cheng

doi:10.3389/fneur.2024.1445599

Static and temporal dynamic changes of intrinsic brain activity in early-onset and adult-onset schizophrenia: a fMRI study of interaction effects

Front Neurol. 2024 Nov 25:15:1445599. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2024.1445599. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Jingli Chen^{1

2

3}, Yarui Wei^{1

2}, Kangkang Xue^{1

2}, Xinyu Gao^{1

2}, Mengzhe Zhang^{1

2}, Shaoqiang Han^{1

2}, Baohong Wen^{1

2}, Guangyu Wu³, Jingliang Cheng^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
² Laboratory for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Molecular Imaging of Henan Province, Zhengzhou, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Background: Schizophrenia is characterized by altered static and dynamic spontaneous brain activity. However, the conclusions regarding this are inconsistent. Evidence has revealed that this inconsistency could be due to mixed effects of age of onset.

Methods: We enrolled 66/84 drug-naïve first-episode patients with early-onset/adult-onset schizophrenia (EOS/AOS) and matched normal controls (NCs) (46 adolescents, 73 adults), undergoing resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Two-way ANOVA was used to determine the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and dynamic ALFF (dALFF) among the four groups.

Result: Compared to NCs, EOS had a higher ALFF in inferior frontal gyrus bilateral triangular part (IFG-tri), left opercular part (IFG-oper), left orbital part (IFG-orb), and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). The AOS had a lower ALFF in left IFG-tri, IFG-oper, and lower dALFF in left IFG-tri. Compared to AOS, EOS had a higher ALFF in the left IFG-orb, and MFG, and higher dALFF in IFG-tri. Adult NCs had higher ALFF and dALFF in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) than adolescent NCs. The main effects of diagnosis were found in the PFC, medial temporal structures, cerebrum, visual and sensorimotor networks, the main effects of age were found in the visual and motor networks of ALFF and PFC of dALFF.

Conclusion: Our findings unveil the static and dynamic neural activity mechanisms involved in the interaction between disorder and age in schizophrenia. Our results underscore age-related abnormalities in the neural activity of the PFC, shedding new light on the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the development of schizophrenia. This insight may offer valuable perspectives for the specific treatment of EOS in clinical settings.

Keywords: AOS; EOS; amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation; compensatory effect; dynamic intrinsic brain activity.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 81601467 and 81871327), the Medical Science and Technology Research Project of Henan Province (no. 201701011), and the Medical Science and Technology Research Project of Henan province (no. SBGJ202101013).