Hitachi Ltd., Research and Development Group, Saitama, Japan.
Mood Disorders Association Japan, Tokyo, Japan.
J Biomed Opt. 2019 May;24(5):1-7. doi: 10.1117/1.JBO.24.5.056008.
The increase in the number of patients with mental disorders with depressive symptoms has become a significant problem. To prevent people developing those disorders and help with the effective recovery, it is important to quantitatively and objectively monitor an individual's mental state. Previous studies have shown the relationship between negative or depressive mood state and human prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation during verbal and spatial working memory tasks based on a near-infrared spectroscopy imaging technique. In this study, we aimed to explore a biomarker of the mental state of people in remission of mental disorders with depressive symptoms using this technique. We obtained the PFC activation of return-to-work (RTW) trainees in remission of those disorders, compared that of healthy controls, and obtained subjective questionnaire scores with the Profile of Mood States. We compared the PFC activation with the questionnaire scores by receiver operating characteristic analysis using a logistic-regression model. The results showed that the PFC activation indicates a healthy state compared to that of the RTW trainees evaluated by area-under-curve analysis. This study demonstrates that our PFC measurement technique will be useful as a quantitative and objective assessment of mental state.
心境障碍伴抑郁症状患者人数的增加已成为一个重大问题。为了预防人们患上这些疾病并帮助他们有效康复，定量和客观地监测个体的精神状态非常重要。先前的研究已经表明，基于近红外光谱成像技术，在言语和空间工作记忆任务中，消极或抑郁情绪状态与人类前额叶皮层（PFC）的激活之间存在关系。在这项研究中，我们旨在使用该技术探索心境障碍伴抑郁症状缓解者精神状态的生物标志物。我们获得了处于缓解期的这些障碍的重返工作（RTW）受训者的 PFC 激活情况，并与健康对照组进行了比较，同时还使用心境状态问卷获得了主观问卷评分。我们通过使用逻辑回归模型的受试者工作特征分析比较了 PFC 激活与问卷评分。结果表明，与通过曲线下面积分析评估的 RTW 受训者相比，PFC 激活表明处于健康状态。这项研究表明，我们的 PFC 测量技术将作为一种定量和客观的精神状态评估方法很有用。
