The different effect of adverse childhood experiences on Theory of Mind brain networks in schizophrenia and healthy controls

Introduction Deficit in Theory of Mind (ToM) is a core feature of schizophrenia (SZ), while adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) can contribute to worsen ToM abilities through their effect on brain functioning, structure and connectivity. Objectives Here, we investigated the effects of ACEs on brain functional connectivity (FC) during an affective and cognitive ToM task (AToM, CToM) in healthy control (HC) and SZ, and whether FC can predict the performance at the ToM task and patients’ symptoms severity. Methods The sample included 26 HC and 33 SZ. In an fMRI session, participants performed a ToM task targeting affective and cognitive domains. Whole-brain FC patterns of local correlation (LC) and multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) were extracted. The significant MVPA clusters were used as seeds in further seed-based connectivity analyses. Second-level analyses were modelled to investigate the interaction between ACEs, the diagnosis, and the task, corrected for age, sex, and equivalent doses of chlorpromazine (p