Altered functional connectivity of cerebellar networks in first-episode schizophrenia

Introduction: Abnormalities of the cerebellum have been displayed to be a manifestation of schizophrenia (SCH) which is a detrimental psychiatric disorder. It has been recognized that the cerebellum contributes to motor function, sensorimotor function, cognition, and other brain functions in association with cerebral functions. Multiple studies have observed that abnormal alterations in cerebro-cerebellar functional connectivity (FC) were shown in patients with SCH. However, the FC of cerebellar networks in SCH remains unclear.

Methods: In this study, we explored the FC of cerebellar networks of 45 patients with first-episode SCH and 45 healthy control (HC) subjects by using a defined Yeo 17 network parcellation system. Furthermore, we performed a correlation analysis between cerebellar networks’ FC and positive and negative symptoms in patients with first-episode SCH. Finally, we established the classification model to provide relatively suitable features for patients with first-episode SCH concerning the cerebellar networks.

Results: We found lower between-network FCs between 14 distinct cerebellar network pairs in patients with first-episode SCH, compared to the HCs. Significantly, the between-network FC in N2-N15 was positively associated with positive symptom severity; meanwhile, N4-N15 was negatively associated with negative symptom severity. Besides, our results revealed a satisfactory classification accuracy (79%) of these decreased between-network FCs of cerebellar networks for correctly identifying patients with first-episode SCH.

Conclusion: Conclusively, between-network abnormalities in the cerebellum are closely related to positive and negative symptoms of patients with first-episode SCH. In addition, the classification results suggest that the cerebellar networks can be a potential target for further elucidating the underlying mechanisms in first-episode SCH.