Comparison of the social gene expression network and social brain network: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study

Numerous previous studies have classified brain regions related to social processing into the "social brain" regions. Recent genetic studies showed that gene expression has a crucial effect on both brain functions and behavioral social performance. However, studies still lack a clear understanding of the organization of the social gene expression (SocGene) network. This study aimed to distinguish the difference between the SocGene network and the social brain network (SBN) and further explored their deficits in schizophrenia (SCZ) patients. The SocGene network was constructed by generating the gene expression maps of six social neuropeptide receptors from the Allen Human Brain Atlas. Then, we recruited a general population sample of 37 participants and a clinical sample including 26 SCZ and 25 Healthy controls (HCs) successively to construct the resting-state SocGene and SBN at the individual level. The integration (global efficiency, GE) and segregation (local efficiency, LE) of these brain networks were calculated using the graphic analysis. Results showed that the GE and LE of the SocGene network were significantly higher than those of the SBN in both two cohorts. The SCZ patients showed significantly diminished LE of the two brain networks compared to HCs, especially in the SocGene network. These findings implied that the SocGene network strengthened the integration and segregation compared to the SBN. SCZ patients mainly exhibited deficits in the segregation of these two brain networks. The current findings provide a new perspective on combining genetic expression and brain function in understanding the psychopathology of social functioning.