Transdiagnostic gray matter volume reductions implicating social dysfunction in depression, schizophrenia, and alcohol use disorder: A neuroimaging meta-analysis
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Anhedonia, social withdrawal and executive deficits represent transdiagnostic symptoms in depression, schizophrenia and addiction, yet transdiagnostic brain volumetric alterations and their contribution to these symptom domains have not been systematically characterized. Here, we capitalized on a pre-registered (https://osf.io/s57uq) coordinate-based meta-analysis across 147 VBM studies (n=13,041) to determine common and disorder-specific gray matter deficits in patients with schizophrenia (90 studies), major depression disorder (44 studies) and alcohol use disorder (13 studies). Original case-control articles comparing patients with healthy controls, published in English and reporting whole-brain results were included. We found shared GMV alterations in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, ventral anterior cingulate cortex, insula, superior temporal gyrus. On the network level, we found robust functional interactions of the identified shared regions with the cortical midline structures as well as social and theory of mind-related behavioral functions. Subsequent characterization analyses highlighted the involvement of dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmitters as well as associated genetic annotations. Overall, the present meta-analysis found common as well as separate GMV abnormalities in schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and alcohol use disorder suggesting a common neurostructural substrate and treatment target for social withdrawal and anhedonia across these disorders. Keywords: alcohol-use disorder, depression, meta-analysis, schizophrenia, voxel-based morphometry
