Qingdao University Medical College, Qingdao 266000, China; Qingdao Mental Health Center, Qingdao 266034, China.
Clinical Research Center, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200030, China.
Neurosci Lett. 2024 Nov 1;842:138004. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2024.138004. Epub 2024 Sep 26.
It has been established that there are functional changes in the brain of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) patients, but previous studies of functional connectivity (FC) usually involved selection of regions of interest based on accumulated a priori knowledge of the disorder. In this study, we combine amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) and FC; this approach, based on the abnormal ALFF, may provide some insights into the neural basis of the disease in terms of fMRI signals of low-frequency fluctuations.
A total of 16 TRD patients, who visited the Qingdao Mental Health Center, Shandong Province, China between March 2023 and January 2024, along with 16 normal subjects, were enrolled into this study for functional imaging. In this study, we first explored the ALFF changes of TRD patients at a baseline resting state. Second, we selected the regions that were significantly changed in the ALFF as seeds and calculated the regional activity and functional connectivity (FC) of these regions using a seed-based approach. We also calculated correlations between the percent change in the PDQ-5D scores and ALFF values in brain regions with differing activity for TRD patients.
During the baseline resting state, by using the ALFF, we found a significantly decreased or increased ALFF in the TRD patients relative to the controls. These regions were located in the left/right postcentral gyrus (PoCG.L/PoCG.R), right cuneus(CUN.R). We found that the ALFF values of the right hippocampus (HIP.R) in the TRD group were negatively correlated with the PDQ-5D score. Then, we selected these brain regions as seeds to investigate the FC changes in brains of TRD patients. We found abnormal functional connectivity in left/right middle frontal gyrus(MFG.L/MFG.R), the right Inferior frontal gyrus, opercular part (IFGoperc.R), the left/right Anterior cingulate and paracingulate gyri (ACC.L/ACC.R), the right supramarginal gyrus (SMG.R), and the right Calcarine fissure and surrounding cortex (CAL.R).
We found a larger range of altered brain regions in TRD patients compared to healthy controls, especially in the central executive network (CEN), salience network (SN) and default mode network (DMN).
已经证实，治疗抵抗性抑郁症（TRD）患者的大脑存在功能变化，但之前关于功能连接（FC）的研究通常涉及基于疾病积累的先验知识选择感兴趣的区域。在这项研究中，我们结合了低频振幅（ALFF）和 FC；这种基于异常 ALFF 的方法，可能会从 fMRI 低频波动信号方面为疾病的神经基础提供一些见解。
本研究共纳入 16 例 2023 年 3 月至 2024 年 1 月期间在山东省青岛市精神卫生中心就诊的 TRD 患者，以及 16 例正常对照，进行功能成像。在这项研究中，我们首先在基线静息状态下探索了 TRD 患者的 ALFF 变化。其次，我们选择在 ALFF 中发生明显变化的区域作为种子，并使用基于种子的方法计算这些区域的局部活动和功能连接（FC）。我们还计算了 TRD 患者脑区 ALFF 值与 PDQ-5D 评分变化百分比之间的相关性。
在基线静息状态下，通过使用 ALFF，我们发现 TRD 患者相对于对照组存在明显的 ALFF 降低或升高。这些区域位于左侧/右侧中央后回（PoCG.L/PoCG.R）、右侧楔前叶（CUN.R）。我们发现 TRD 组右侧海马（HIP.R）的 ALFF 值与 PDQ-5D 评分呈负相关。然后，我们选择这些脑区作为种子来研究 TRD 患者大脑的 FC 变化。我们发现左侧/右侧额中回（MFG.L/MFG.R）、右侧额下回眶部（IFGoperc.R）、左侧/右侧扣带回和旁扣带回（ACC.L/ACC.R）、右侧缘上回（SMG.R）和右侧楔叶和周围皮质（CAL.R）存在异常功能连接。
与健康对照组相比，我们发现 TRD 患者的大脑中存在更大范围的改变区域，特别是在中央执行网络（CEN）、突显网络（SN）和默认模式网络（DMN）中。
