Mental Health Institute of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Key Laboratory of Psychiatry and Mental Health of Hunan Province, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
PLoS One. 2013 Aug 2;8(8):e71368. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071368. Print 2013.
Previous studies have demonstrated that patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and treatment-sensitive depression (TSD) differed at neural level. However, it remains unclear if these two subtypes of depression differ in the interhemispheric coordination. This study was undertaken for two purposes: (1) to explore the differences in interhemispheric coordination between these two subtypes by using the voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method; and (2) to determine if the difference of interhemispheric coordination can be used as a biomarker(s) to differentiate TRD from both TSD and healthy subjects (HS).
Twenty-three patients with TRD, 22 with TSD, and 19 HS participated in the study. Data of these participants were analyzed with the VMHC and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) approaches.
Compared to the TSD group, the TRD group showed significantly lower VMHC values in the calcarine cortex, fusiform gyrus, hippocampus, superior temporal gyrus, middle cingulum, and precentral gyrus. Lower VMHC values were also observed in the TRD group in the calcarine cortex relative to the HS group. However, the TSD group had no significant change in VMHC value in any brain region compared to the HS group. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) analysis revealed that the VMHC values in the calcarine cortex had discriminatory function distinguishing patients with TRD from patients with TSD as well as those participants in the HS group.
Lower VMHC values of patients with TRD relative to those with TSD and those in the HS group in the calcarine cortex appeared to be a unique feature for patients with TRD and it may be used as an imaging biomarker to separate patients with TRD from those with TSD or HS.
先前的研究表明，治疗抵抗性抑郁症（TRD）和治疗敏感性抑郁症（TSD）患者在神经水平上存在差异。然而，目前尚不清楚这两种抑郁症亚型在大脑半球间协调方面是否存在差异。本研究旨在探索两种亚型之间大脑半球间协调的差异：（1）采用体素镜像同伦连接（VMHC）方法；（2）确定大脑半球间协调的差异是否可以作为生物标志物来区分 TRD 与 TSD 和健康对照（HS）。
23 名 TRD 患者、22 名 TSD 患者和 19 名 HS 参与者参加了本研究。采用 VMHC 和基于种子的功能连接（FC）方法对参与者的数据进行分析。
与 TSD 组相比，TRD 组在楔前叶、梭状回、海马、颞上回、扣带回中部和中央前回的 VMHC 值显著降低。与 HS 组相比，TRD 组在楔前叶的 VMHC 值也较低。然而，与 HS 组相比，TSD 组在任何脑区的 VMHC 值均无显著变化。受试者工作特征曲线（ROC）分析表明，楔前叶的 VMHC 值具有区分 TRD 患者与 TSD 患者以及 HS 组参与者的功能。
与 TSD 患者和 HS 组相比，TRD 患者楔前叶的 VMHC 值较低，这似乎是 TRD 患者的一个独特特征，可作为影像学生物标志物，将 TRD 患者与 TSD 或 HS 患者区分开来。
