Frontiers in Psychiatry (Apr 2022)

Alternations in Dynamic and Static Functional Connectivity Density in Chronic Smokers

  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Zhengui Yang,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Mengmeng Wen,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Yarui Wei,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Huiyu Huang,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Ruiping Zheng,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Weijian Wang,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Xinyu Gao,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Mengzhe Zhang,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Jingliang Cheng,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Shaoqiang Han,
  • Yong Zhang,
  • Yong Zhang,
  • Yong Zhang,
  • Yong Zhang,
  • Yong Zhang,
  • Yong Zhang,
  • Yong Zhang

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.843254
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13

Abstract

Read online

Previous studies have implicated abnormal functional coordination in brain regions of smokers. Neuroimaging studies demonstrated alternations in brain connectivity by using the resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) method which arbitrarily chooses specific networks or seed regions as priori selections and cannot provide a full picture of the FC changes in chronic smokers. The aim of this study was to investigate the whole-brain functional coordination measured by functional connectivity density (FCD). As the variance of brain activity, dynamic FCD (dFCD) was performed to investigate dynamic changes of whole-brain integration in chronic smokers. In total, 120 chronic smokers and 56 nonsmokers were recruited, and static FCD and dFCD were performed to investigate aberrance of whole-brain functional coordination. Shared aberrance in visual areas has been found in both static and dFCD study in chronic smokers. Furthermore, the results exhibited that both heavy and light smokers demonstrated decreased dFCD in the visual cortex and left precuneus, and also increased dFCD in the right orbitofrontal cortex, left caudate, right putamen, and left thalamus compared with nonsmokers. In addition, alternations of dFCD have been found between heavy and light smokers. Furthermore, the dFCD variations showed significant positive correlation with smoking-related behaviors. The results demonstrated that chronic smokers not only have some initial areas, but also have some regions associated with severity of cigarette smoking. Lastly, dFCD could provide more subtle variations in chronic smokers, and the combination of static and dFCD may deepen our understanding of the brain alternations in chronic smokers.

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