Coordinated cortical thickness alterations across six neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34367-6
• Publication Date: 2022-11-11T16:02:40Z
• Authors: M. D. Hettwer; S. Larivière; B. Y. Park; O. A. van den Heuvel; L. Schmaal; O. A. Andreassen; C. R. K. Ching; M. Hoogman; J. Buitelaar; D. van Rooij; D. J. Veltman; D. J. Stein; B. Franke; T. G. M. van Erp; ; ; D. van Rooij; ; ; ; O. A. van den Heuvel; ; T. G. M. van Erp; N. Jahanshad; P. M. Thompson; S. I. Thomopoulos; R. A. I. Bethlehem; B. C. Bernhardt; S. B. Eickhoff; S. L. Valk
• Keywords: Neurodevelopmental disorder

Abstract Neuropsychiatric disorders are increasingly conceptualized as overlapping spectra sharing multi-level neurobiological alterations. However, whether transdiagnostic cortical alterations covary in a biologically meaningful way is currently unknown. Here, we studied co-alteration networks across six neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, reflecting pathological structural covariance. In 12,024 patients 18,969 controls from the ENIGMA consortium, observed that patterns followed normative connectome organization were anchored to prefrontal temporal disease epicenters. Manifold learning revealed frontal-to-temporal sensory/limbic-to-occipitoparietal gradients, differentiating shared illness effects on thickness along these axes. The principal gradient aligned with covariance established transcriptomic link cortico-cerebello-thalamic circuits. Moreover, gradients segregated functional involved basic sensory, attentional/perceptual, domain-general cognitive processes, distinguished between regional cytoarchitectonic profiles. Together, our findings indicate occur synchronized fashion multiple levels of hierarchical organization.