xiaoping wu1, yanjun gao1, Pan Lin2, Junle Yang1, Rui Yang3, and Jian Yang4
1Department of Radiology, the Affiliated Xi’an Central Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, People's Republic of, 2Key Laboratory of Biomedical Information Engineering of Education Ministry, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, People's Republic of, 3Department of Psychiatry, the Affiliated Xi’an Central Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, People's Republic of, 4Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, People's Republic of
Synopsis
Patients
with MDD showed abnormalities in the connectivity of the CON. We found abnormal
connectivity in MDD patients between the dACC and the bilateral middle
frontal gyrus (MFG) and between the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and precentral
gyrus. Moreover, regression analysis showed that depression symptom severity (measured
with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) and Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire scores (ATQ)) was significantly correlated with the FC values of the CON.Background
Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a common psychiatric disorder that may be associated with abnormal cognitive control and emotion regulation. Previous studies have found that network disconnection within the cingulo-opercular network (CON) plays an important role in psychiatric disorders and that the CON may be relevant to the psychopathology of MDD. We thus used the resting-state functional connectivity method in patients with MDD and healthy controls to examine CON neural circuit abnormalities in MDD.
Methods
Using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the resting state functional connectivity of the CON using the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) as the seed region of interest. The resulting functional connectivity (FC) correlation maps were employed to investigate between-group differences. Additionally, we examined the association between depression symptom severity and functional connectivity results. The participants were patients with MDD (n=19) and healthy controls (n=19).
Results
Patients with MDD showed abnormalities in the connectivity of the CON. We found abnormal connectivity in MDD patients between the dACC and the bilateral middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and between the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and precentral gyrus. Moreover, regression analysis showed that depression symptom severity (measured with the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) and Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire scores (ATQ)) was significantly correlated with the FC values of the CON.
Conclusions
We found functional disconnection within the CON in MDD patients compared to controls. The CON FC plays a critical role in cognitive control and emotion regulation. The disrupted FC in the CON is associated with cognitive and emotion regulation deficits in MDD. Moreover, the disconnections correlate with the severity of depression symptoms. Our findings suggest that MDD is associated with disrupted FC of the CON, which contributes to our understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of MDD.
Acknowledgements
No acknowledgement found.References
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