School of Medical Imaging, Binzhou Medical University, No. 346 Guanhai Road, Yantai, Shandong 264003, PR China; Department of Radiology, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Qingdao University, Yantai, Shandong 264000, PR China.
Department of Radiology, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Qingdao University, Yantai, Shandong 264000, PR China.
Behav Brain Res. 2022 Sep 5;433:113980. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2022.113980. Epub 2022 Jul 6.
Postpartum depression (PPD) is a common mood disorder with increasing incidence year by year. However, the dynamic changes in local neural activity of patients with PPD remain unclear. In this study, we utilized the dynamic amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (dALFF) method to investigate the abnormal temporal variability of local neural activity and its potential correlation with clinical severity in PPD.
Twenty-four patients with PPD and nineteen healthy primiparous mothers controls (HCs) matched for age, education level and body mass index were examined by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). A sliding-window method was used to assess the dALFF, and a k-means clustering method was used to identify dALFF states. Two-sample t-test was used to compare the differences of dALFF variability and state metrics between PPD and HCs. Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the relationship between dALFF variability, states metrics and clinical severity.
(1) Patients with PPD had lower variance of dALFF than HCs in the cognitive control network, cerebellar network and sensorimotor network. (2) Four dALFF states were identified, and patients with PPD spent more time on state 2 than the other three states. The number of transitions between the four dALFF states increased in the patients compared with that in HCs. (3) Multiple dALFF states were found to be correlated with the severity of depression. The variance of dALFF in the right middle frontal gyrus was negatively correlated with the Edinburgh postnatal depression scale score.
This study provides new insights into the brain dysfunction of PPD from the perspective of dynamic local brain activity, highlighting the important role of dALFF variability in understanding the neurophysiological mechanisms of PPD.
产后抑郁症（PPD）是一种常见的心境障碍，发病率逐年上升。然而，PPD 患者局部神经活动的动态变化尚不清楚。在这项研究中，我们利用低频振幅（dALFF）方法研究了局部神经活动的异常时间变异性及其与 PPD 临床严重程度的潜在相关性。
对 24 例 PPD 患者和 19 名年龄、教育程度和体重指数相匹配的健康初产妇对照（HCs）进行静息态功能磁共振成像（rs-fMRI）检查。采用滑动窗口法评估 dALFF，采用 K-均值聚类法识别 dALFF 状态。采用两样本 t 检验比较 PPD 和 HCs 之间 dALFF 变异性和状态指标的差异。采用 Pearson 相关分析 dALFF 变异性、状态指标与临床严重程度的关系。
（1）与 HCs 相比，PPD 患者的认知控制网络、小脑网络和感觉运动网络的 dALFF 变异性降低。（2）识别出四个 dALFF 状态，PPD 患者在状态 2 上花费的时间多于其他三个状态。与 HCs 相比，患者在四个 dALFF 状态之间的转换次数增加。（3）多个 dALFF 状态与抑郁严重程度相关。右侧额中回的 dALFF 变异性与爱丁堡产后抑郁量表评分呈负相关。
本研究从动态局部脑活动的角度为 PPD 的脑功能障碍提供了新的见解，强调了 dALFF 变异性在理解 PPD 神经生理机制中的重要作用。
