Peking University Institute of Mental Health, National Health Commission Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders (Peking University Sixth Hospital), Beijing, 100191, China.
Department of Psychiatry, Wuhan Wuchang Hospital, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430063, China; Clinical and Translational Sciences Lab, The Douglas Research Centre, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Yichang Mental Health Center, Hubei, China; Institute of Mental Health, Three Gorges University, Hubei, China; Yichang City Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Hubei, China.
Psychiatry Res Neuroimaging. 2024 Sep;343:111847. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2024.111847. Epub 2024 Jul 4.
While prior studies have explored the efficacy of Morinda officinalis oligosaccharides (MOs) as a treatment for patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), the mechanistic basis for the effects of MOs on brain function or the default-mode network (DMN) has yet to be characterized. The objective of this was to examine the effects of MOs treatment on functional connectivity in different regions of the DMN.
In total, 27 MDD patients and 29 healthy control subjects (HCs) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The patients were then treated with MOs for 8 weeks, and scanning was performed at baseline and the end of the 8-week treatment period. Changes in DMN homogeneity associated with MOs treatment were assessed using network homogeneity (NH) analyses of the imaging data, and pattern classification approaches were employed to determine whether abnormal baseline NH deficits could differentiate between MDD patients and controls. The ability of NH abnormalities to predict patient responses to MOs treatment was also evaluated.
Relative to HCs, patients exhibited a baseline reduction in NH values in the right precuneus (PCu). At the end of the 8-week treatment period, the MDD patients showed reduced and increased NH values in the right PCu and left superior medial frontal gyrus (SMFG), respectively. Compared to these patients at baseline, the 8-week MOs treatment was associated with reduced NH values in the right angular gyrus and increased NH values in the left middle temporal gyrus and the right PCu. Support vector machine (SVM) analyses revealed that NH abnormalities in the right PCu and left SMFG were the most accurate (87.50%) for differentiating between MDD patients and HCs.
These results indicated that MOs treatment could alter default-mode NH in patients with MDD. The results provide a foundation for elucidation of the effects of MOs on brain function and suggest that the distinctive NH patterns observed in this study may be useful as imaging biomarkers for distinguishing between patients with MDD and healthy subjects.
虽然先前的研究已经探讨了桑枝多糖（MOs）作为治疗重度抑郁症（MDD）患者的疗效，但 MOs 对大脑功能或默认模式网络（DMN）的影响的机制基础尚未得到描述。本研究旨在探讨 MOs 治疗对 DMN 不同区域功能连接的影响。
共纳入 27 例 MDD 患者和 29 例健康对照者（HCs）进行静息态功能磁共振成像。患者随后接受 MOs 治疗 8 周，在基线和 8 周治疗期末进行扫描。使用成像数据的网络均匀性（NH）分析评估与 MOs 治疗相关的 DMN 均匀性变化，并采用模式分类方法确定异常基线 NH 缺陷是否可以区分 MDD 患者和对照组。还评估了 NH 异常预测患者对 MOs 治疗反应的能力。
与 HCs 相比，患者在右侧顶下小叶（PCu）的基线 NH 值降低。在 8 周治疗期末，MDD 患者右侧 PCu 和左侧额上内侧回（SMFG）的 NH 值分别降低和增加。与这些患者的基线相比，8 周的 MOs 治疗与右侧角回的 NH 值降低和左侧颞中回和右侧 PCu 的 NH 值增加相关。支持向量机（SVM）分析表明，右侧 PCu 和左侧 SMFG 的 NH 异常最能准确区分 MDD 患者和 HCs（87.50%）。
这些结果表明，MOs 治疗可以改变 MDD 患者的默认模式 NH。这些结果为阐明 MOs 对大脑功能的影响提供了基础，并表明本研究中观察到的独特 NH 模式可能作为区分 MDD 患者和健康受试者的影像学生物标志物有用。
