Cho Seo-Eun, Kim Nambeom, Na Kyoung-Sae, Kang Chang-Ki, Kang Seung-Gul
Department of Psychiatry, Gil Medical Center, Gachon University College of Medicine, Incheon, South Korea.
Department of Biomedical Engineering Research Center, Gachon University, Incheon, South Korea.
Front Psychiatry. 2021 Sep 1;12:699416. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.699416. eCollection 2021.
The thalamus and habenula are thought to be key brain regions in the etiology of major depressive disorder (MDD); however, few studies have investigated the structural connection between them. We compared the number of white matter tracts between the thalamus and habenula between patient with MDD and normal controls (NCs). The habenula and thalamus region of interest masks were extracted from brain magnetic resonance imaging data and individual tractography analysis was performed. First, we compared the number of fiber connections from the habenula to the thalamus between the MDD ( = 34) and NC ( = 37) groups and also compared hemispherical differences to investigate possible asymmetries. There was a significant difference in the number of tracts in the right habenula-left mediodorsal thalamus pair between the two groups. For hemispherical fiber connections, the waytotal ratio of the right ipsilateral tract between the thalamus and habenula was significantly higher than that of the left ipsilateral tract in both groups. The number of right habenula-left mediodorsal thalamus tracts was higher in patients with MDD than in NCs. These results indicate that MDD is related to the disintegration of the left thalamus-right habenula tract function with an increased number of tracts as a compensational mechanism.
丘脑和缰核被认为是重度抑郁症（MDD）病因中的关键脑区；然而，很少有研究调查它们之间的结构连接。我们比较了MDD患者和正常对照（NCs）之间丘脑和缰核之间白质束的数量。从脑磁共振成像数据中提取缰核和丘脑感兴趣区域的掩码，并进行个体纤维束成像分析。首先，我们比较了MDD组（n = 34）和NC组（n = 37）之间从缰核到丘脑的纤维连接数量，并比较了半球差异以研究可能的不对称性。两组之间右侧缰核-左侧背内侧丘脑对的束数量存在显著差异。对于半球纤维连接，两组中丘脑和缰核之间右侧同侧束的总比例均显著高于左侧同侧束。MDD患者右侧缰核-左侧背内侧丘脑束的数量高于NCs。这些结果表明，MDD与左丘脑-右缰核束功能的解体有关，束数量增加是一种补偿机制。
