The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder

Previous research indicated that the cerebellum is involved in psychopathologies with body-focused repetitive behaviors. The present study investigated whether patients with a diagnosis of skin-picking disorder (SPD) also show altered cerebellar structure and function. Structural as well as function...

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Autores principales: Wabnegger, Albert, Schienle, Anne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6351678/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29934941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12311-018-0957-y
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author Wabnegger, Albert
Schienle, Anne
author_facet Wabnegger, Albert
Schienle, Anne
author_sort Wabnegger, Albert
collection PubMed
description Previous research indicated that the cerebellum is involved in psychopathologies with body-focused repetitive behaviors. The present study investigated whether patients with a diagnosis of skin-picking disorder (SPD) also show altered cerebellar structure and function. Structural as well as functional MRI data from 30 SPD patients and 31 controls were analyzed. The fMRI approach compared cerebellar activity and connectivity between the two groups during scratching and caressing of a small skin area on the arm. Relative to controls, SPD patients were characterized by reduced gray matter volumes in the left cerebellar lobules V and VI. During picking (relative to caressing), SPD patients displayed increased activation of the left crus I, which showed enhanced coupling with the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). This study provides the first evidence that SPD patients display structural as well as functional abnormalities in specific subregions of the cerebellum related to motor (V) and affective-cognitive functions (VI, crus I). The SPD-related altered cerebellar connectivity with an area implicated in affect control (VLPFC) fits nicely to the model of pathological skin picking as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy.
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spelling pubmed-63516782019-02-21 The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder Wabnegger, Albert Schienle, Anne Cerebellum Original Paper Previous research indicated that the cerebellum is involved in psychopathologies with body-focused repetitive behaviors. The present study investigated whether patients with a diagnosis of skin-picking disorder (SPD) also show altered cerebellar structure and function. Structural as well as functional MRI data from 30 SPD patients and 31 controls were analyzed. The fMRI approach compared cerebellar activity and connectivity between the two groups during scratching and caressing of a small skin area on the arm. Relative to controls, SPD patients were characterized by reduced gray matter volumes in the left cerebellar lobules V and VI. During picking (relative to caressing), SPD patients displayed increased activation of the left crus I, which showed enhanced coupling with the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC). This study provides the first evidence that SPD patients display structural as well as functional abnormalities in specific subregions of the cerebellum related to motor (V) and affective-cognitive functions (VI, crus I). The SPD-related altered cerebellar connectivity with an area implicated in affect control (VLPFC) fits nicely to the model of pathological skin picking as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy. Springer US 2018-06-22 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC6351678/ /pubmed/29934941 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12311-018-0957-y Text en © The Author(s) 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Wabnegger, Albert
Schienle, Anne
The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder
title The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder
title_full The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder
title_fullStr The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder
title_full_unstemmed The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder
title_short The Role of the Cerebellum in Skin-Picking Disorder
title_sort role of the cerebellum in skin-picking disorder
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6351678/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29934941
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12311-018-0957-y
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