Provincial and connector qualities of somatosensory brain network hubs in bipolar disorder

• Published in: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2024-09, Vol.34 (9)
• Main Authors: Klahn, Anna Luisa, Thompson, William Hedley, Momoh, Imiele, Abé, Christoph, Liberg, Benny, Landén, Mikael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Bipolar Disorder; Bipolar Disorder - diagnostic imaging; Bipolar Disorder - physiopathology; Brain; Brain - diagnostic imaging; Brain - physiopathology; Connectome; diagnostic imaging; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Medicin och hälsovetenskap; Middle Aged; Nerve Net; Nerve Net - diagnostic imaging; Nerve Net - physiology; Nerve Net - physiopathology; Neural Pathways; Neural Pathways - diagnostic imaging; Neural Pathways - physiopathology; Neurosciences; Neurovetenskaper; physiology; physiopathology; Psychiatry; Psykiatri; Somatosensory Cortex; Somatosensory Cortex - diagnostic imaging; Somatosensory Cortex - physiopathology; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1047-3211; 1460-2199; 1460-2199
• DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae366

Abstract Brain network hubs are highly connected brain regions serving as important relay stations for information integration. Recent studies have linked mental disorders to impaired hub function. Provincial hubs mainly integrate information within their own brain network, while connector hubs share information between different brain networks. This study used a novel time-varying analysis to investigate whether hubs aberrantly follow the trajectory of other brain networks than their own. The aim was to characterize brain hub functioning in clinically remitted bipolar patients. We analyzed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from 96 euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder and 61 healthy control individuals. We characterized different hub qualities within the somatomotor network. We found that the somatomotor network comprised mainly provincial hubs in healthy controls. Conversely, in bipolar disorder patients, hubs in the primary somatosensory cortex displayed weaker provincial and stronger connector hub function. Furthermore, hubs in bipolar disorder showed weaker allegiances with their own brain network and followed the trajectories of the limbic, salience, dorsal attention, and frontoparietal network. We suggest that these hub aberrancies contribute to previously shown functional connectivity alterations in bipolar disorder and may thus constitute the neural substrate to persistently impaired sensory integration despite clinical remission.