Dopaminergic organization of striatum is linked to cortical activity and brain expression of genes associated with psychiatric illness

TY - JOUR

T1 - Dopaminergic organization of striatum is linked to cortical activity and brain expression of genes associated with psychiatric illness

AU - McCutcheon, Robert A.

AU - Brown, Kirsten

AU - Nour, Matthew M.

AU - Smith, Stephen M.

AU - Veronese, Mattia

AU - Zelaya, Fernando

AU - Osugo, Martin

AU - Jauhar, Sameer

AU - Hallett, William

AU - Mehta, Mitul M.

AU - Howes, Oliver D.

N1 - Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2021/6

Y1 - 2021/6

N2 - Dopamine signaling is constrained to discrete tracts yet has brain-wide effects on neural activity. The nature of this relationship between local dopamine signaling and brain-wide neuronal activity is not clearly defined and has relevance for neuropsychiatric illnesses where abnormalities of cortical activity and dopamine signaling coexist. Using simultaneous PET-MRI in healthy volunteers, we find strong evidence that patterns of striatal dopamine signaling and cortical blood flow (an index of local neural activity) contain shared information. This shared information links amphetamine-induced changes in gradients of striatal dopamine receptor availability to changes in brain-wide blood flow and is informed by spatial patterns of gene expression enriched for genes implicated in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. These results advance our knowledge of the relationship between cortical function and striatal dopamine, with relevance for understanding pathophysiology and treatment of diseases in which simultaneous aberrations of these systems exist.

AB - Dopamine signaling is constrained to discrete tracts yet has brain-wide effects on neural activity. The nature of this relationship between local dopamine signaling and brain-wide neuronal activity is not clearly defined and has relevance for neuropsychiatric illnesses where abnormalities of cortical activity and dopamine signaling coexist. Using simultaneous PET-MRI in healthy volunteers, we find strong evidence that patterns of striatal dopamine signaling and cortical blood flow (an index of local neural activity) contain shared information. This shared information links amphetamine-induced changes in gradients of striatal dopamine receptor availability to changes in brain-wide blood flow and is informed by spatial patterns of gene expression enriched for genes implicated in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. These results advance our knowledge of the relationship between cortical function and striatal dopamine, with relevance for understanding pathophysiology and treatment of diseases in which simultaneous aberrations of these systems exist.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107489780&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.abg1512

DO - 10.1126/sciadv.abg1512

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85107489780

SN - 2375-2548

VL - 7

JO - Science Advances

JF - Science Advances

IS - 24

M1 - eabg1512

ER -