Accumulating mental-health research encourages a shift in focus toward transdiagnostic dimensional features that are shared across categorical disorders. In support of this shift, recent studies have identified a general liability factor for psychopathology-sometimes called the 'p factor'- that underlies shared risk for a wide range of mental disorders. Identifying neural correlates of this general liability would substantiate its importance in characterizing the shared origins of mental disorders and help us begin to understand the mechanisms through which the 'p factor' contributes to risk. Here we believe we first replicate the 'p factor' using cross-sectional data from a volunteer sample of 1246 university students, and then using high-resolution multimodal structural neuroimaging, we demonstrate that individuals with higher 'p factor' scores show reduced structural integrity of white matter pathways, as indexed by lower fractional anisotropy values, uniquely within the pons. Whole-brain analyses further revealed that higher 'p factor' scores are associated with reduced gray matter volume in the occipital lobe and left cerebellar lobule VIIb, which is functionally connected with prefrontal regions supporting cognitive control. Consistent with the preponderance of cerebellar afferents within the pons, we observed a significant positive correlation between the white matter integrity of the pons and cerebellar gray matter volume associated with higher 'p factor' scores. The results of our analyses provide initial evidence that structural alterations in corticocerebellar circuitry supporting core functions related to the basic integration, coordination and monitoring of information may contribute to a general liability for common mental disorders.

中文翻译：

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小脑回路内的结构改变与常见精神障碍的一般责任有关。

越来越多的心理健康研究鼓励人们将注意力转移到跨类别疾病共有的经诊断的维度特征上。为了支持这种转变，最近的研究已经确定了精神病理学的一般责任因素（有时称为“ p因子”），它是广泛的精神疾病共同风险的基础。识别这种一般责任的神经相关因素将证实其在表征精神疾病的共同起源方面的重要性，并帮助我们开始理解“ p因子”通过其引起风险的机制。在这里，我们相信我们首先使用来自1246名大学生的志愿者样本的横截面数据来复制“ p因子”，然后使用高分辨率的多模态结构神经成像，我们证明，具有较高“ p因子”分数的个体在脑桥中唯一显示出较低的分数各向异性值所指示的白质途径结构完整性降低。全脑分析进一步显示，较高的“ p因子”得分与枕叶和左小脑小叶VIIb的灰质体积减少有关，后者在功能上与支持认知控制的前额叶区域相关。与脑桥中小脑传入的优势相一致，我们观察到脑桥的白质完整性与小脑灰质体积（与较高的“ p因子”得分相关）之间存在显着的正相关。