Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterised by structural and functional brain alterations. Yet, there is little data on functional connectivity (FC) across different levels of brain networks and parameters. In this study, we applied a multi-level approach to analyse abnormal functional connectivity. We analysed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data sets of 69 subjects: 17 female BPD patients and 51 age-matched psychiatrically healthy female controls. fMRI was analysed using CONN toolbox including: a) seed-based FC analysis of amygdala connectivity, b) independent component analysis (ICA) based network analysis of intra- and inter-network FC of selected resting-state networks (DMN, SN, FPN), as well as c) graph-theory based measures of network-level characteristics. We show group-level seed FC differences with higher amygdala to contralateral (superior) occipital cortex connectivity in BPD, which correlated with schema-therapy derived measures of symptoms/traits across the entire cohort. While there was no significant group effect on DMN, SN, or FPN intra-network or inter-network FC, we show a significant group difference for local efficiency and cluster coefficient for a DMN-linked cerebellum cluster. Our findings demonstrate BPD-linked changes in FC across multiple levels of observation, which supports a multi-level analysis for future studies to consider different aspects of functional connectome alterations.

中文翻译：

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边缘性人格障碍中的杏仁核功能连接

边缘性人格障碍（BPD）的特点是大脑结构和功能的改变。然而，关于不同级别的大脑网络和参数的功能连接（FC）的数据却很少。在本研究中，我们采用多层次方法来分析异常功能连接。我们分析了 69 名受试者的静息态功能磁共振成像 (fMRI) 数据集：17 名女性 BPD 患者和 51 名年龄匹配的精神健康女性对照。使用 CONN 工具箱对 fMRI 进行分析，包括：a）基于种子的杏仁核连接性 FC 分析，b）基于独立成分分析 (ICA) 的网络分析，对所选静息态网络（DMN、SN、FPN）的网络内和网络间 FC 进行网络分析），以及c）基于图论的网络级特征测量。我们展示了 BPD 中较高杏仁核与对侧（上）枕叶皮层连接的组级种子 FC 差异，这与整个队列中图式疗法衍生的症状/特征测量相关。虽然 DMN、SN 或 FPN 网络内或网络间 FC 没有显着的群体效应，但我们显示 DMN 连接的小脑簇的局部效率和簇系数存在显着的群体差异。我们的研究结果表明，FC 在多个观察水平上与 BPD 相关的变化，这支持未来研究的多水平分析，以考虑功能连接组改变的不同方面。