Open Access

ARTICLE

Exploring the Abnormal Brain Regions and Abnormal Functional Connections in SZ by Multiple Hypothesis Testing Techniques

Lan Yang¹, Shun Qi^2,3,#, Chen Qiao^1,*, Yanmei Kang¹

1 School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China
2 Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710061, China
3 Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi’an, 710032, China

* Corresponding Author: Chen Qiao. Email:
# The co-first author

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Data Science and Modeling in Biology, Health, and Medicine)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2020, 125(1), 215-237. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2020.010796

Received 30 March 2020; Accepted 29 June 2020; Issue published 18 September 2020

Abstract

Schizophrenia (SZ) is one of the most common mental diseases. Its main characteristics are abnormal social behavior and inability to correctly understand real things. In recent years, the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique has been popularly utilized to study SZ. However, it is still a great challenge to reveal the essential information contained in the MRI data. In this paper, we proposed a biomarker selection approach based on the multiple hypothesis testing techniques to explore the difference between SZ and healthy controls by using both functional and structural MRI data, in which biomarkers represent both abnormal brain functional connectivity and abnormal brain regions. By implementing the biomarker selection approach, six abnormal brain regions and twenty-three abnormal functional connectivity in the brains of SZ are explored. It is discovered that compared with healthy controls, the significantly reduced gray matter volumes are mainly distributed in the limbic lobe and the basal ganglia, and the significantly increased gray matter volumes are distributed in the frontal gyrus. Meanwhile, it is revealed that the significantly strengthened connections are those between the middle frontal gyrus and the superior occipital gyrus, the superior occipital gyrus and the middle occipital gyrus as well as the middle occipital gyrus and the fusiform gyrus, and the rest connections are significantly weakened.

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Keywords

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