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Altered amygdala functional connectivity in adult Tourette’s syndrome

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European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience Aims and scope Submit manuscript

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Abstract

Tourette’s syndrome (TS) is a developmental neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by motor and vocal tics as well as psychiatric comorbidities. Recently, differences in maturation of cortical networks using functional connectivity metrics have been described for this disorder. However, adult data on subcortical networks are scarce. In particular, the connectivity of the amygdala, for which a role in the pathophysiology of TS has been established, has not been examined so far. We studied 15 adult TS patients (11 male, aged 30.4 ± 9.7y) and 15 age- and sex-matched controls (11 male, aged 32.0 ± 9.3y) in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study at 1.5T using a simple motor task. We corrected for possible confounds introduced by tics, motion and brain-structural differences as well as age, sex, and medication. Task performance was monitored by simultaneous MR-compatible video-recording. Data were analyzed using an independent component approach sensitive to functional connectivity patterns. A stable component comprising both amygdalae could be identified across all subjects. Additionally, we observed a highly significant increase in coupling between/within amygdalae in the TS group when compared to controls, although behavioral data obtained during scanning did not show significant differences. These findings are expected to add to our understanding of the functional architecture of Tourette’s syndrome.

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Acknowledgments

We thank all patients and their families for participating in the study. We are grateful to the German Tourette Association who supported this study by contributing travel funds. We thank Petra Engels, Barbara Elghahwagi and Gabriele Oefler for their excellent technical assistance. This work was funded by a fellowship to I.N. (“Rotationsprogramm”) of the Medical Faculty, RWTH Aachen University (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule), Aachen, Germany. The Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-4) acknowledges funding by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and Siemens for the 9.4T project.

Conflict of interest

Cornelius J. Werner, Tony Stöcker, Thilo Kellermann, and Irene Neuner report no conflict of interest. N. Jon Shah reports funding from the BMBF and Siemens for the 9.4T MR/PET (magnetic resonance/positron emission tomography) project. Frank Schneider received compensation as a consultant for Janssen-Cilag, AstraZeneca, and Otsouka. Frank Schneider received compensation for scientific talks or contribution in a prize jury by Janssen-Cilag, Wyeth, and AstraZeneca. Frank Schneider received funding for investigator initiated projects from AstraZeneca, Lilly and Pfizer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre Juelich, Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine, INM4, Juelich, Germany

    Cornelius J. Werner, Tony Stöcker, N. Jon Shah & Irene Neuner

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Cornelius J. Werner, Thilo Kellermann, Frank Schneider & Irene Neuner

  3. Department of Neurology, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Cornelius J. Werner & N. Jon Shah

  4. Research Centre Juelich, Central Institute of Electronics, Juelich, Germany

    Hans Peter Wegener

  5. JARA, Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen, Germany

    Cornelius J. Werner, Tony Stöcker, Thilo Kellermann, Frank Schneider, N. Jon Shah & Irene Neuner

Authors
  1. Cornelius J. Werner
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  2. Tony Stöcker
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  3. Thilo Kellermann
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  4. Hans Peter Wegener
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  5. Frank Schneider
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  6. N. Jon Shah
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  7. Irene Neuner
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Correspondence to Irene Neuner.

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Werner, C.J., Stöcker, T., Kellermann, T. et al. Altered amygdala functional connectivity in adult Tourette’s syndrome. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 260 (Suppl 2), 95–99 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-010-0161-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-010-0161-7

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