Over the past two decades, the development of neuroimaging techniques has allowed the non-invasive investigation of neuroplastic changes associated with psychotherapeutic treatment. The aim of the ...present article is to present a systematic and critical review of longitudinal studies addressing the impact of psychotherapy on the brain published to date. After summarizing the results reported in the literature for each psychiatric disorder separately (i.e. obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, unipolar major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, specific phobia, schizophrenia), we discuss the results focusing on three questions of interest: (i) whether neurobiological changes which follow psychotherapy occur in regions that showed significant neurofunctional alteration pre-treatment; (ii) whether these neurobiological changes are similar, or different, to those observed following pharmacological treatment; and (iii) whether neurobiological changes could be used as an objective means of monitoring the progress and outcome of psychotherapy. The evidence reviewed indicates that (i) depending on the disorder under investigation, psychotherapy results in either a normalisation of abnormal patterns of activity, the recruitment of additional areas which did not show altered activation prior to treatment, or a combination of the two; (ii) the effects of psychotherapy on brain function are comparable to those of medication for some but not all disorders; and (iii) there is preliminary evidence that neurobiological changes are associated with the progress and outcome of psychotherapy. It is hoped that a better understanding of the impact of psychotherapy on brain function will eventually inform the development of new biologically informed treatments and allow clinicians to make more effective treatment decisions.
Neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia have indicated that the development of auditory verbal hallucinations (AVHs) is associated with altered structural and functional connectivity within the ...perisylvian language network. However, these studies focussed mainly on either structural or functional alterations in patients with chronic schizophrenia. Therefore, they were unable to examine the relationship between the 2 types of measures and could not establish whether the observed alterations would be expressed in the early stage of the illness. We used diffusion tensor imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine white matter integrity and functional connectivity within the left perisylvian language network of 46 individuals with an at risk mental state for psychosis or a first episode of the illness, including 28 who had developed AVH group and 18 who had not (nonauditory verbal hallucination nAVH group), and 22 healthy controls. Inferences were made at P < .05 (corrected). The nAVH group relative to healthy controls showed a reduction of both white matter integrity and functional connectivity as well as a disruption of the normal structure-function relationship along the fronto-temporal pathway. For all measures, the AVH group showed intermediate values between healthy controls and the nAVH group. These findings seem to suggest that, in the early stage of the disorder, a significant impairment of fronto-temporal connectivity is evident in patients who do not experience AVHs. This is consistent with the hypothesis that, whilst mild disruption of connectivity might still enable the emergence of AVHs, more severe alterations may prevent the occurrence of the hallucinatory experience.
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