Reduced functional connectivity of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex at rest in obsessive–compulsive disorder

Abstract

Background: Neuroimaging studies have revealed the role of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the neurobiological mechanism of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). However, only a few studies have examined the functional connectivity (FC) pattern of the right DLPFC at rest in OCD. Objective: The aim of this research is to examine the FC patterns of the right DLPFC at rest in OCD. Methods: Twenty-eight medication-free patients with OCD and 20 healthy controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Seed-based FC and support vector machine (SVM) were used to analyze the imaging data. Results: The patients with OCD showed reduced FC values in the right middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right superior temporal gyrus, right ventral anterior cingulate cortex (vACC), and left Crus II. No brain regions showed a remarkable difference in FC values in patients with OCD after 8 weeks of medication treatment. The reduced right DLPFC–right MTG and right DLPFC–right vACC connectivities were correlated with the clinical symptoms of OCD. SVM results showed that reduced right DLPFC–right MTG connectivity at rest could predict the therapeutic response to OCD medication. Conclusions: The findings highlight the important role of the right DLPFC in the pathophysiological mechanism of OCD.