Abstract

Background: Despite significant symptomatic overlap between behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and primary psychiatric disorders (PPDs), a potential overlap in their structural anatomical changes has not been studied systematically. Methods: In this magnetic resonance imaging-based meta-analysis, we included studies on bvFTD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder that 1) used voxel-based morphometry analysis to assess regional gray matter volumes (GMVs) and 2) reported the coordinates of the regional GMV. Separate analyses were performed comparing clusters of coordinate-based changes in the GMVs (n = 24,183) between patients and control subjects, and overlapping brain regions between bvFTD and each PPD were examined. Results: We found that GMV alterations in the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, temporal lobe, amygdala, and insula comprise the transdiagnostic brain alterations in bvFTD and PPD. Conclusions: Our meta-analysis revealed significant anatomical overlap that paves the way for future investigations of shared pathophysiological pathways, and our cross-disorder approach would provide new insights to better understand the relationship between bvFTD and PPD.
Original languageEnglish
JournalBiological Psychiatry
Early online date2022
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 2022

Keywords

  • Autism spectrum disorder
  • Behavior
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Dementia
  • Frontotemporal dementia
  • Schizophrenia

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