Departments of Radiology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.
Depress Anxiety. 2013 Oct;30(10):902-7. doi: 10.1002/da.22049. Epub 2013 Mar 22.
Deficits in serotonergic neurotransmission have been implicated in the pathogenesis of depression and suicidality. The present study utilized a novel positron-emission tomography (PET) ligand to quantitate and compare brain regional serotonin transporter (SERT) binding potential in depressed patients with a past history of suicide attempts to that of healthy comparison subjects.
We used [(11) C]-ZIENT PET to label SERT in the serotonergic cell body rich brainstem, and forebrain projection fields. Quantitative PET emission data from 21 adults (10 healthy controls and 11 drug-free patients with major depression) was used for group comparison. SERT binding potential (BPND ) in eight MRI-based brain regions of interest (ROI) were compared in high-resolution PET images.
SERT binding potential was significantly decreased in the midbrain/pons (P = .029) and putamen (P = .04) of depressed patients with a past suicide attempt relative to comparison subjects. Forebrain SERT binding was also reduced in the patient sample, though these region effects did not survive a multiple comparison correction.
These results suggest that decreased availability of the brainstem and basal ganglia SERT represents a biomarker of depression and thus confirm and extend the role of dysregulation of brain serotonergic neurotransmission in the pathophysiology of depression and suicide.
血清素能神经传递的缺陷与抑郁症和自杀的发病机制有关。本研究利用一种新型正电子发射断层扫描（PET）配体来定量比较有自杀未遂史的抑郁症患者和健康对照组的大脑区域血清素转运体（SERT）结合潜能。
我们使用[11C]-ZIENT PET 标记富含血清素能细胞体的脑干和前脑投射区的 SERT。使用 21 名成年人（10 名健康对照和 11 名无药物治疗的重度抑郁症患者）的定量 PET 发射数据进行组间比较。在高分辨率 PET 图像中比较了基于 MRI 的 8 个感兴趣脑区（ROI）的 SERT 结合潜能（BPND）。
与对照组相比，有自杀未遂史的抑郁症患者中脑/脑桥（P=0.029）和壳核（P=0.04）的 SERT 结合潜能显著降低。尽管这些区域效应没有通过多次比较校正，但患者样本中的前脑 SERT 结合也减少了。
这些结果表明，脑干和基底节 SERT 的可用性降低代表了抑郁症的生物标志物，从而证实并扩展了脑血清素能神经传递失调在抑郁症和自杀的病理生理学中的作用。
