Altered functional connectivity of reward circuits in adolescents with addictive nonsuicidal self-injury

Motivation: To explore the alterations in functional connectivity (FC) between regions of the reward circuit and the entire brain. Goal(s): To explore the alterations in functional connectivity (FC) between regions of the reward circuit and the entire brain. Approach: A total of 37 unmedicated adolescents with NSSI were recruited, including 24 adolescents with addictive NSSI (aNSSI group), 13 adolescents with non-addictive NSSI (nNSSI group), and 25 healthy controls (HCs). Seed-based FC was used to examine the FC alterations between reward circuit and whole brain. Results: Relative to the nNSSI group, the aNSSI group showed increased in FC between left hippocampus and right caudate nucleus. Impact: Our results revealed that the regions of FC changes associated with NSSI addiction in the reward circuit included the left hippocampus and right caudate nucleus, which provide evidence for the neural mechanism of adolescent NSSI behavioral addiction.