No significant alteration in white matter microstructure in first-degree relatives of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

• Published in: Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging 2024-10, Vol.344, p.111884, Article 111884
• Main Authors: Tomiyama, Hirofumi, Murayama, Keitaro, Nemoto, Kiyotaka, Kato, Kenta, Matsuo, Akira, Kang, Mingi, Sashikata, Kenta, Togao, Osamu, Nakao, Tomohiro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - pathology; Diffusion tensor imaging; Diffusion Tensor Imaging - methods; Endophenotype; Family; Female; First-degree relatives; Fractional anisotropy; Humans; Male; Middle Aged; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - diagnostic imaging; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - genetics; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder - pathology; White Matter - diagnostic imaging; White Matter - pathology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0925-4927; 1872-7506; 1872-7506
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2024.111884

•We investigated white matter alteration of first-degree relatives of patients with OCD.•We could not detect significant difference in FA with strict threshold.•Subtle reductions were observed in the anterior corona radiata, forceps minor, cingulum bundle, and corpus callosum only when we used a lenient statistical threshold.•Our results suggest that changes in the white matter microstructure of first-degree relatives as vulnerability markers may be subtle. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by structural alteration within white matter tissues of cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical, temporal and occipital circuits. However, the presence of microstructural changes in the white matter tracts of unaffected first-degree relatives of patients with OCD as a vulnerability marker remains unclear. Therefore, here, diffusion-tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI) data were obtained from 29 first-degree relatives of patients with OCD and 59 healthy controls. We investigated the group differences in FA using whole-brain analysis (DTI analysis). For additional regions of interest (ROI) analysis, we focused on the posterior thalamic radiation and sagittal stratum, shown in recent meta-analysis of patients with OCD. In both whole-brain and ROI analyses, using a strict statistical threshold (family-wise error rate [FWE] corrected p