Striatum-related Intrinsic Connectivity Deficits in Lifelong Premature Ejaculation Patients.

Abstract Objectives : To investigate abnormal intrinsic connectivity of striatum in lifelong premature ejaculation (PE) patients compared with healthy controls (HCs) Methods : Forty-seven lifelong PE patients and thirty healthy controls were enrolled in the present study and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The functional connectivity (FC) analysis and two-sample t-tests were applied to investigate the alterations of striatum-related connectivity in patients compared with HCs (significant threshold at p Results : The results showed that compared with HCs, lifelong PE patients had significantly decreased FC between the right caudate and insula, superior temporal pole (STP) and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) as well as decreased FC between the bilateral putamen and insula, STP and middle cingulate cortex (MCC). Meanwhile, patients had significantly increased FC between the left caudate and OFC, and increased FC between the right putamen and fusiform. The mean FC value from the caudate-OFC, caudate-insula and caudate-STP connectivity negatively correlated with the Premature Ejaculation Diagnostic Tool (PEDT) score, separately. Conclusions : The current study showed the functional abnormality of lifelong PE in multiple brain regions implicated in sensation, motivation and ejaculation-related inhibitory control, which may improve our understanding of the abnormal striatum-related neural mechanisms in lifelong PE patients.