Mounting evidence indicates that multiple psychiatric disorders are linked to alterations in mesocorticolimbic dopamine-related circuits. However, the common and distinctive alterations remain to be examined in schizophrenia (SCZ), major depressive disorder (MDD), and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Thus, we aimed to examine common and disease-specific features related to mesocorticolimbic circuits using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). This study included 555 participants from four institutes with five scanners: 140 individuals with SCZ (45.0% female), 127 individuals with MDD (44.9%), 119 individuals with ASD (15.1%), and 169 healthy controls (HC) (34.9%). All participants underwent rs-fMRI. Estimated effective connectivities were compared among the groups. Intrinsic effective connectivity in the mesocorticolimbic dopamine-related circuits including the ventral tegmental area (VTA), shell, and core parts of the nucleus accumbens (NAc), and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were examined using dynamic causal modeling analysis across these disorders. The excitatory shell-to-core connectivity was greater in all patients compared with the HC group. The inhibitory shell-to-VTA and shell-to-mPFC connectivities were greater in the ASD group than in HC, MDD, and SCZ groups. Furthermore, the VTA-to-core and VTA-to-shell connectivities were excitatory in the ASD group, while those connections were inhibitory in HC, MDD, and SCZ groups. The impaired mesocorticolimbic dopamine-related circuits might be an underlying neuropathogenesis of various psychiatric disorders. Our findings may improve understanding of unique neural alternations of each disorder, and facilitate identification of effective therapeutic targets.
 Authors' abstract