Zhou Hongliang, Dai Zongpeng, Hua Lingling, Jiang Haiteng, Tian Shui, Han Yinglin, Lin Pinhua, Wang Haofei, Lu Qing, Yao Zhjjian
Department of Psychiatry, the Affiliated Brain Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China.
School of Biological Sciences & Medical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China.
Front Psychiatry. 2020 Jan 22;10:989. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00989. eCollection 2019.
The regulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) can improve cognitive function in major depressive disorders (MDD). Heart rate variability (HRV) derives from the dynamic control of the ANS and reflects the balance between the activities of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems by measuring tiny changes in adjacent heart beats. Task-related HRV may reflect the association between the flexibility of cognition and ANS function. The study was to investigate the neural mechanism of interactions between ANS and cognitive function in MDD with Magnetoencephalography (MEG) measurements. Participants included 20 MDD patients and 18 healthy controls (HCs). All participants were measured with a go/no-go task MEG. HRV indices, the standard deviation of the average normal-to-normal (NN) interval calculated over short periods (SDANN) and the square root of the mean squared differences of successive NN intervals (RMSSD), were derived from the raw MEG data. Results showed that MDD patients showed decreased SDANN and RMSSD. In MDD patients, both resting-state and task-related RMSSD were related to inhibitory and control dysfunction. In the go/no-go task, many areas in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are responsible for an individual's inhibitory function. A brain MEG functional connectivity analysis revealed that there were significant differences in four brain regions within the prefrontal cortex (PFC) between MDD patients and HCs. Task-related RMSSD in HCs were related to the functional connectivity between the left middle frontal gyrus and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), while in MDD patients, these values were not related to the above functional connectivity but were related to the functional connectivity between the left middle frontal gyrus and insula. However, the resting-state RMSSD value was not related to these significant difference functional connectivity networks in all participants. It concludes that the decreased task-related HRV is associated with inhibitory dysfunction through functional inter-region connectivity in the PFC in MDD, and the task-related HRV can be used as an index of the association between MDD and autonomic dysregulation.
自主神经系统（ANS）的调节可以改善重度抑郁症（MDD）的认知功能。心率变异性（HRV）源自ANS的动态控制，通过测量相邻心跳的微小变化来反映交感神经系统和副交感神经系统活动之间的平衡。与任务相关的HRV可能反映认知灵活性与ANS功能之间的关联。本研究旨在通过脑磁图（MEG）测量来探究MDD中ANS与认知功能相互作用的神经机制。参与者包括20名MDD患者和18名健康对照者（HCs）。所有参与者均接受了一项“停止信号”任务的MEG测量。HRV指标，即短时间内计算得到的平均正常到正常（NN）间期的标准差（SDANN）以及连续NN间期均方根差值（RMSSD），是从原始MEG数据中得出的。结果显示，MDD患者的SDANN和RMSSD降低。在MDD患者中，静息状态和与任务相关的RMSSD均与抑制和控制功能障碍有关。在“停止信号”任务中，前额叶皮质（PFC）的许多区域负责个体的抑制功能。脑MEG功能连接性分析显示，MDD患者和HCs在前额叶皮质（PFC）内的四个脑区存在显著差异。HCs中与任务相关的RMSSD与左侧额中回和前扣带回皮质（ACC）之间的功能连接性有关，而在MDD患者中，这些值与上述功能连接性无关，但与左侧额中回和岛叶之间的功能连接性有关。然而，静息状态下的RMSSD值在所有参与者中与这些显著差异的功能连接网络均无关。研究得出结论，在MDD中，与任务相关的HRV降低通过PFC中区域间的功能连接与抑制功能障碍相关，并且与任务相关的HRV可作为MDD与自主神经调节异常之间关联的指标。
