Aberrant Functional Connectivity of Sensorimotor Network and Its Relationship With Executive Dysfunction in Bipolar Disorder Type I.

Background: The key pathophysiological mechanism of executive dysfunction in patients with bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) is still unclear. Previous studies have demonstrated that it may be related to the disbalance of the sensory motor network (SMN). Objective: This study was designed to explore the aberrant functional connectivity (FC) of SMN in BD-I patients and its potential associations with executive dysfunction. Methods: Eighteen BD-I patients and 20 healthy controls (HCs) underwent resting-state fMRI scans. The intranetwork and internetwork functional connectivities of SMN were extracted by independent component analysis (ICA). Clinical symptoms were assessed by the Bech-Rafaelsen Mania Rating Scale (BRMS) and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Executive function was measured by digit span tasks and a verbal fluency test. Finally, linear regression and correlation analyses were applied to measure the potential associations between clinical symptoms, intranetwork and internetwork functional connectivities, and executive function performance. Results: (1) Patients with BD-I showed increased connectivity in the right paracentral lobule and the right postcentral gyrus within the SMN, and the increased connectivity value was positively correlated with the BRMS score ( Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the sensorimotor network of BD-I has abnormal functional connections within and between networks, and the abnormal FC value correlated with clinical symptoms and executive function, which provide new information for exploring the neural physiopathology of executive dysfunction in BD-I patients.