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Shared and separate patterns in brain morphometry across transdiagnostic dimensions

Nature Mental Health volume 1, pages 55–65 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Determining similarities and differences in brain structure across psychiatric disorders is important to determine if psychiatric taxonomy is reflected in distinct brain structural changes. As previous neuroimaging meta-analyses have typically focused on a single disorder, precluding transdiagnostic comparisons, we aimed to quantify patterns of similarity and differences between psychiatric disorders in terms of regional brain volumes. Here we show, in network and pairwise meta-analyses of 498 studies (51,227 individuals, 17 psychiatric disorders and 17 brain regions), that psychiatric disorders show both distinct and overlapping patterns of brain volume gain and loss. A principal components analysis demonstrated that the first principal component could account for 48% of variance and corresponded to a pattern of increased basal ganglia and decreased hippocampal and amygdala volumes. This component loaded most strongly for disorders on the psychosis spectrum, and most weakly for affective disorders. Our findings illustrated that, while similar volumetric alterations are frequently shared between disorders, neuroanatomical patterns also appear related to clinically meaningful categories. (PROSPERO Registration: CRD42020221143.)

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2: Network graphs for brain regions examined.
Fig. 3: Forest plots for standardized mean differences of individual disorders compared with healthy controls.
Fig. 4: Summary of regional volume differences.
Fig. 5: PCA.

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Data availability

All data were obtained from publicly available research accessed via MEDLINE, EMBASE and PSYCHINFO databases.

Code availability

All code is available at https://github.com/rob-mccutcheon/volumetric_network_meta.

Change history

  • 26 May 2023

    In the version of this article initially published, the name of Toni-Ann Heron appeared as Toni Ann-Heron; the error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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Acknowledgements

R.A.M. was funded by and NIHR academic clinical lectureship and a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Career Development Fellowship (224625/Z/21/Z). T.P. is funded by the NIHR. O.D.H. is funded by Medical Research Council-UK (no. MC-A656-5QD30), Maudsley Charity (no. 666), Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and Wellcome Trust (no. 094849/Z/10/Z) grants and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London, and by NIHR. O.E. is supported by Ambizione grant no. 180083 from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). A.C. is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Cognitive Health Clinical Research Facility, by an NIHR Research Professorship (grant RP-2017-08-ST2-006), by the NIHR Oxford and Thames Valley Applied Research Collaboration and by the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (grant BRC-1215-20005). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the UK National Health Service, the NIHR or the UK Department of Health.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Robert A McCutcheon, Toby Pillinger.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Robert A. McCutcheon, Orestis Efthimiou & Andrea Cipriani

  2. Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK

    Robert A. McCutcheon & Andrea Cipriani

  3. Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, London, UK

    Robert A. McCutcheon, Toby Pillinger, Xin Guo, Maria Rogdaki, George Welby, Luke Vano, Connor Cummings, Toni-Ann Heron, David Davies, Mawada Ghanem & Oliver D. Howes

  4. Psychiatric Imaging Group, MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, Hammersmith Hospital, London, UK

    Toby Pillinger, Luke Vano & Oliver D. Howes

  5. Institute of Clinical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Toby Pillinger, Luke Vano & Oliver D. Howes

  6. South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

    Toby Pillinger, Luke Vano & Oliver D. Howes

  7. Department of Psychiatry, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China

    Xin Guo

  8. Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College London, London, UK

    Maria Rogdaki

  9. Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Connor Cummings

  10. CUBRIC, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Stefan Brugger

  11. Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Orestis Efthimiou

  12. Institute of Primary Health Care (BIHAM), University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Orestis Efthimiou

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Contributions

R.A.M. and T.P. participated in the conception, drafting, revising and final approval of this manuscript. G.W., L.V., C.C., X.G., T.A.-H., M.G., O.E., A.C., M.R., S.B., D.D. and O.D.H. participated in the revising and final approval of this manuscript.

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Correspondence to Robert A. McCutcheon.

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Competing interests

R.A.M. has received honoraria from Otsuka and Janssen for educational talks. A.C. has received research and consultancy fees from INCiPiT (Italian Network for Paediatric Trials) and CARIPLO Foundation and Angelini Pharma, outside the submitted work. T.P. has participated in speaker meetings organized by Sunovion, Lundbeck, Janssen and Otsuka. O.D.H. is a part-time employee of H. Lundbeck A/S and has received investigator-initiated research funding from and/or participated in advisory/speaker meetings organized by Angellini, Autifony, Biogen, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Heptares, Global Medical Education, In-vicro, Jansenn, Lundbeck, Neurocrine, Otsuka, Sunovion, Rand, Recordati, Roche and Viatris/Mylan. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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McCutcheon, R.A., Pillinger, T., Guo, X. et al. Shared and separate patterns in brain morphometry across transdiagnostic dimensions. Nat. Mental Health 1, 55–65 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-022-00010-y

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