Decreased Cortical Folding of the Fusiform Gyrus and Its Hypoconnectivity with Sensorimotor Areas in Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract Background To explore the differences in the fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) at the whole-brain level between young adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) and those with Subclinical depression (SD). Methods Thirty-nine first-episode MDD patients, 30 SD subjects, and 37 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. All participants underwent resting-state fMRI (Rs-fMRI) scans on a 3T MR scanner. We used the fALFF to explore spontaneous neuronal activity between groups. Results Significant differences in the fALFF were observed among the three groups. Compared with the HCs, an increased fALFF was found in the left cerebellum in MDD patients. When MDD patients were compared with SD subjects, we observed increased fALFF values in the bilateral fusiform gyrus and decreased fALFF values in the right inferior frontal gyrus, right superior frontal gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, left cuneus and right precuneus. Compared with the HCs, the SD group demonstrated increased fALFF values in the precuneus. Additionally, a positive correlated was revealed between the fALFF values and Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA)score in the right fusiform gyrus in MDD patients. Moreover, the fALFF value were negatively correlated with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) score in the right inferior frontal gyrus and with the age in the left fusiform gyrus in SD subjects. Conclusions Our findings suggest that alterations of cognitive and executive networks, default mode networks and visual recognition circuits may contribute to the different neural mechanisms between MDD and SD in young adult subjects.

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Disrupted Regional Homogeneity in Melancholic and Non-melancholic Major Depressive Disorder at Rest

Frontiers in Psychiatry ◽

10.3389/fpsyt.2021.618805 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Meiqi Yan ◽

Yuqiong He ◽

Xilong Cui ◽

Feng Liu ◽

Huabing Li ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Major Depressive Disorder ◽

Depressive Disorder ◽

Regional Homogeneity ◽

Fusiform Gyrus ◽

Support Vector ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Melancholic Depression ◽

Major Depressive ◽

Middle Occipital Gyrus ◽

The Right

Background: Melancholic depression has been viewed as one severe subtype of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unclear whether melancholic depression has distinct changes in brain imaging. We aimed to explore specific or distinctive alterations in melancholic MDD and whether the alterations could be used to separate melancholic MDD from non-melancholic MDD or healthy controls.Materials and Methods: Thirty-one outpatients with melancholic MDD and thirty-three outpatients with non-melancholic MDD and thirty-two age- and gender-matched healthy controls were recruited. All participants were scanned by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Imaging data were analyzed with the regional homogeneity (ReHo) and support vector machine (SVM) methods.Results: Melancholic MDD patients exhibited lower ReHo in the right superior occipital gyrus/middle occipital gyrus than non-melancholic MDD patients and healthy controls. Merely for non-melancholic MDD patients, decreased ReHo in the right middle frontal gyrus was negatively correlated with the total HRSD-17 scores. SVM analysis results showed that a combination of abnormal ReHo in the right fusiform gyrus/cerebellum Crus I and the right superior occipital gyrus/middle occipital gyrus exhibited the highest accuracy of 83.05% (49/59), with a sensitivity of 90.32% (28/31), and a specificity of 75.00% (21/28) for discriminating patients with melancholic MDD from patients with non-melancholic MDD. And a combination of abnormal ReHo in the right fusiform gyrus/cerebellum VI and left postcentral gyrus/precentral gyrus exhibited the highest accuracy of 98.41% (62/63), with a sensitivity of 96.77% (30/31), and a specificity of 100.00%(32/32) for separating patients with melancholic MDD from healthy controls.Conclusion: Our findings showed the distinctive ReHo pattern in patients with melancholic MDD and found brain area that may be associated with the pathophysiology of non-melancholic MDD. Potential imaging markers for discriminating melancholic MDD from non-melancholic MDD or healthy controls were reported.

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