THE ROLE OF THE DEFAULT MODE NETWORK IN SCHIZOPHRENIA AND AUDITORY VERBAL HALLUCINATIONS - AN INVESTIGATION OF DYNAMIC FMRI RESTING STATE CONNECTIVITY

Abstract Background There is a wealth of evidence showing aberrant functional connectivity (FC) in schizophrenia but with considerable variability in findings across studies. Dynamic FC is an extension of traditional static FC, in that such analyses allow for explorations of temporal changes in connectivity. Thereby they also provide more detailed information on connectivity abnormalities in psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. Methods The current study investigated dynamic FC in a sample of 80 schizophrenia patients and 80 matched healthy control subjects. Furthermore, relationships with auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH), a core symptom of schizophrenia, were explored. Two measures of AVH were used, one measure of current AVH severity assessed on the day of scanning, and one trait-measure where AVH were assessed repeatedly over the course of one year. Results Compared to healthy controls, schizophrenia patients showed increased dwell times in states with high connectivity within the default mode network (DMN). Current AVH severity did not show a significant relationship with dynamic FC. However, the trait-measure of AVH proneness over one year showed a significant relationship with dynamic FC. Patients with high AVH proneness spent less time in connectivity states characterized by strong anti-correlation between the DMN and task-positive networks. Discussion The results provide further evidence for a DMN dysfunction in schizophrenia, which could be linked to thought disturbances in relation to an increased internal focus of cognitive processing. The effects of AVH proneness on dynamic FC support theoretical models of AVH which have proposed an instability of the DMN and impaired cognitive control in AVH patients. The results also point to AVH proneness as a potential marker for identifying distinct subgroups of schizophrenia patients.