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Abnormal Brain Wiring as a Pathogenetic Mechanism
in Schizophrenia
Martijn P. van den Heuvel and René S. Kahn
ur brain is a network. On a macroscopic level, hundreds of
brain regions, each having their own task or function, interact through thousands of structural connections, continuously processing, sharing, and integrating information.
Driven by advances in neuroimaging techniques and mathematics, it has now become increasingly feasible to examine large
scale brain connectivity, both structurally and functionally (1).
Structural connectivity refers to the physical connections between
brain regions, such as white matter pathways; functional connectivity refers to the level of statistical dependence between activation patterns of brain regions, often believed to reflect, to some
extent, large-scale neuronal communication. High levels of efficient
functional and structural brain connectivity are known to be crucial
for healthy performance of the brain (2). Conversely, one may expect abnormalities in connectivity of the brain to relate to psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia.
It has indeed been hypothesized for more than a century that
schizophrenia is related to abnormal brain connectivity. Wernicke
suggested that psychotic symptoms may result from structural abnormalities of association tracts in the brain. What’s more, Bleuler
defined the illness on the fragmented (or split) thinking observed in
people with the disorder (for a review, see [3]). The rise of modern
neuroimaging techniques has revived the hypothesis that schizophrenia is a result of abnormal brain connectivity. Consequently, a
growing number of studies has examined brain connectivity in
schizophrenia, finding it to be abnormal. Diffusion imaging studies
have shown white matter disconnectivity on a macroscopic level,
reporting reduced integrity of key frontal-temporal white matter
connections (for a review, see review [4]). Furthermore, functional
connectivity studies have reported abnormal functional coupling
between frontal, parietal, and temporal brain areas in patients (5,6).
However, it remains unknown which connections are specifically
affected and how this abnormal connectivity is linked to different
aspects of the disease. The paper by Hinkley et al. (7) in this issue of
Biological Psychiatry is one of the first studies to show how symptoms are related to disrupted functional connectivity of the brain in
schizophrenia.
Using functional connectivity analysis of source-space reconstructions of resting-state magnetoencephalographic sensor recordings of 30 patients with schizophrenia and 15 healthy controls,
Hinkley et al. (7) examined differences in functional coupling between cortical regions in patients. A level of global connectivity was
computed for each cortical region as the total sum of connectivity
to all other regions, interpreted by the authors as a measure of how
well a particular region is connected to the rest of the brain. The
authors report reduced connectivity of left prefrontal cortex and
right superior temporal cortex in patients, together with an increase in connectivity of the left extrastriate visual cortex and right
O
From the Department of Psychiatry, University Medical Center Utrecht, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Address correspondence to Martijn van den Heuvel, Ph.D., Department of
Psychiatry, Rudolf Magnus Institute of Neuroscience, University Medical
Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3508 GA Utrecht, P.O. Box 85500,
Utrecht, The Netherlands; E-mail: [email protected].
Received Oct 18, 2011; accepted Oct 19, 2011.
0006-3223/$36.00
doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.10.020
inferior prefrontal cortex. Furthermore, functional connectivity of
the left inferior parietal and left insular cortex was found to be
negatively correlated with severity of psychotic symptoms. As suggested by the authors, this correlation might reflect a diminished
functional role of these regions in the language network, leading
toward abnormal auditory perceptual experiences. Second, lower
levels of connectivity of the left prefrontal cortex was found to be
significantly correlated with negative symptoms, suggesting that a
reduced functional coupling of prefrontal regions is related to more
severe negative symptoms. Third, depressive symptoms were
found to be related to lower levels of global connectivity of the
anterior cingulate cortex. Finally, severity of cognitive features (including attention and disorientation) was associated with lower
levels of functional coupling of the right dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex, a region well known to play a key role in working memory,
attention, and general cognitive processes.
The paper by Hinkley et al. (7) extends recent findings linking
changes in brain connectivity to symptoms in schizophrenia. A
resting-state connectivity study, using functional magnetic resonance imaging rather than magnetoencephalography recordings
to measure functional connectivity, showed that local reductions in
connectivity of the prefrontal cortex in patients were associated
with cognitive disruption, whereas increased global connectivity
was found to be related to the severity of disorganization and
reality distortion (8). In addition, increased levels of functional connectivity between frontal and parietal brain regions were found to
be robustly predictive of better cognitive performance in patients
and their siblings as well as lower levels of disorganization (6).
Hinkley et al. (7) examined how symptoms are related to abnormal connectivity between specific brain regions. In addition to this
approach, others have adopted the view that schizophrenia may
not be related to abnormalities of specific brain regions but rather
be the result of an underlying aberrant organization of the brain
network as a whole. Such network studies are motivated by the
concept that brain function, and by inference dysfunction of the
brain, may not solely be related to the properties of particular brain
regions or specific connections but rather emerges from the interactions of the complete network, the so-called brain’s connectome
(1). The human connectome is a detailed map of all neural connections of our brain, and the emerging field of connectomics attempts
to create and study this comprehensive map of neural circuits on
both the microscopic and a whole-brain macroscopic level (1).
Landmark studies in this emerging field have shown that the connections of the human brain are not random but rather are organized according to a highly efficient topology (9). The brain’s network combines local information processing with efficient global
integration of information between distant parts of the network
(9,10), an organization shown to be critical for healthy brain functioning (2). It has been suggested that schizophrenia may be related
to an abnormal wiring pattern of the brain, particularly a reduced
level of global integration across the network (11). Three studies
have revealed evidence for connectome abnormalities in schizophrenia, observing reduced wiring and diminished global efficiency in patients (5,11,12). Consistent with the findings of Hinkley
et al. (7), these results suggest an abnormal organization of the
brain’s network in patients, with a reduced central hub role of
BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2011;70:1107–1108
© 2011 Society of Biological Psychiatry
1108 BIOL PSYCHIATRY 2011;70:1107–1108
frontal regions (5,11). Brain hubs are regions with an above average
number of connections that take a central position in the network;
they have been suggested to be a focal point for large-scale communication in the human brain (9,10). In this context it has been
hypothesized that diminished functioning of key brain hubs in
schizophrenia may lead to inefficient information integration between the different regions of the brain (5,11). So far, however,
these network studies have not been able to find a clear association
between aberrant brain network topology and cognitive symptoms in schizophrenia (5,11,12), as reported in the study by Hinkley
et al. (7). Be that as it may, our current knowledge about the brain’s
network is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Emerging new
technology will enable the creation of more detailed connectivity
maps and drive discoveries on the fundamental organization of the
human connectome and its critical role in the (dys)functioning of
the brain. We strongly believe that studying the neural circuits of
the brain will ultimately elucidate how the healthy human brain
works and consequently help unravel the pathology of many, if not
all, psychiatric disorders.
A pivotal question remains: where does this abnormal brain
connectivity originate? One hypothesis is that abnormal brain wiring may result from aberrant maturation of the connectome during
brain development. Currently our knowledge of healthy brain development is limited, certainly regarding the formation of brain
connections. Understanding changes in the brain’s connections
will be essential in explaining the underlying brain pathology in
schizophrenia and possibly that of many other psychiatric disorders. The development of the brain’s network may reflect a shift
from a local to a more global organization, in which the level of
information integration is optimized between the distant parts of
the brain (13). However, many questions about healthy brain development remain, such as the following: what underlying mechanism
enforces this shift from a local-to-global orientation, which pathways are involved, what is the role of brain hubs in this process, and
in particular how are these processes linked to the maturation of
human cognition? Large-scale population imaging, following large
number of subjects in a longitudinal setting, provides an opportunity to find answers to these questions. Such studies will provide
fundamental knowledge on normal brain maturation, information
that will be crucial to generate new ways for early detection of
abnormal developmental trajectories leading toward psychiatric
illnesses (13).
www.sobp.org/journal
Commentary
In summary, the study by Hinkley et al. (7) presents a novel
finding on one of the missing links in schizophrenia research, associating as they do abnormal brain connectivity with specific symptoms of the disease. Their study heralds an important new field of
study: examining how abnormal brain wiring is related to the development of psychiatric diseases.
The authors reported no biomedical financial interests or potential
conflicts of interest.
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