Disrupted Resting-State Functional Connectivity between the Dorsal Attention, Default Mode, and Frontoparietal Networks in Nonorganic Gastrointestinal Disorder Patients with Spleen Deficiency Syndrome.

Introduction: Spleen deficiency syndrome (SDS), a common clinical syndrome of traditional Chinese medicine, is manifested with digestive symptoms and cognitive impairments. However, the cognitive neural mechanism in brain networks of SDS still remained unclear. Our aim was to investigate the changes between the default mode, dorsal attention, and frontoparietal networks in SDS.

Methods: Twenty nonorganic gastrointestinal disorder (NOGD) patients with SDS and eighteen healthy controls were enrolled to attend functional magnetic resonance imaging scan and participated a continuous performance test (CPT) before scanning.

Results: Compared with healthy controls, NOGD patients with SDS showed the significantly increased functional connectivity (FC) between dorsal attention network (DAN) and left frontal-parietal control network (LFPN) and significantly decreased FC between LFPN and default mode network (DMN). The functional network connectivity analysis showed positive correlation coefficients between the DAN and LFPN and DAN and DMN as well as negative correlation between LFPN and DMN in NOGD patients with SDS compared with healthy controls. Correlation analysis revealed that the increased FC between LFPN and DAN was positively correlated with 4-digitnumber reaction time mean (RTM) and 3-digitnumber RTM.

Conclusion: Our study may provide novel insights into the relationship among the DMN, DAN, and FPN in NOGD patients with SDS to deepen our understanding of the neuropsychological mechanisms of SDS.