Citation

Zhang H, Wei X, Tao H, Mwansisya TE, Pu W, He Z, Hu A, Xu L, Liu Z, Shan B, Xue Z. PLoS One 2013; 8(5): e63477.

Affiliation

Mental Health Institute of The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China ; Department of Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Public Library of Science)

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0063477

PMID

23704911

PMCID

PMC3660523

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The schizophrenic patients with high suicide risk are characterized by depression, better cognitive function, and prominent positive symptoms. However, the neurobiological basis of suicide attempts in schizophrenia is not clear. The suicide in schizophrenia is implicated in the defects in emotional process and decision-making, which are associated with prefrontal-cingulate circuit. In order to explore the possible neurobiological basis of suicide in schizophrenia, we investigated the correlation of prefrontal-cingulate circuit with suicide risk in schizophrenia via dynamic casual modelling. METHOD: Participants were 33 first-episode schizophrenic patients comprising of a high suicide risk group (N = 14) and a low suicide risk group (N = 19). A comparison group of healthy controls (N = 15) were matched for age, gender and education. N-back tasking functional magnetic resonance imaging data was collected. RESULTS: Compared with healthy controls group, the two patients groups showed decreased task-related suppression during 2-back task state versus baseline state in the left posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex; the hyper-connectivity from the left posterior cingulate cortex to the left medial prefrontal cortex existed in both schizophrenic patients groups, but hypo-connectivity in the opposite direction only existed in the schizophrenic patients group with high suicide risk. CONCLUSIONS: The hyper-connectivity from the left posterior cingulate cortex to the left medial prefrontal cortex may suggest that the abnormal effective connectivity was associated with risk for schizophrenia. The hypo-connectivity in the opposite direction may represent a possible correlate of increased vulnerability to suicide attempt.

Language: en