Yu Yue, Zhang Ting, Li Qianqian, Song Mengyu, Qi Li, Sun Jinmei, Ji Gongjun, Tian Yanghua, Wang Kai
Department of Neurology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, China.
Department of Psychology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, China.
J Affect Disord. 2025 Apr 1;374:55-62. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2025.01.018. Epub 2025 Jan 8.
Major depressive disorder (MDD) and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are two of the leading causes of impairment to human mental health. These two psychiatric disorders overlap in many symptoms and neurobiological features thus difficult to distinguish in some cases.
We enrolled 102 participants, comprising 40 patients with MDD, 32 patients with GAD and 30 matched healthy controls (HCs), to undergo multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. We identified 18 major white matter (WM) tracts with automated fiber quantification (AFQ) method, to evaluated microstructure with fractional anisotropy (FA) and function with amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF). An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to identify differences among groups. We further explored the correlations of FA and ALFF features with clinical symptoms.
We identified the white matter microstructure and function of 89 participants. ANOVA and post-hoc analysis revealed that GAD group exhibited significantly higher FA of right anterior thalamic radiation (ATR) than in MDD and HC groups. Additionally, MDD group exhibited significantly decreased ALFF in forceps major (FMA), forceps minor (FMI), bilateral corticospinal tracts (CST) and left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF) compared to both GAD and HC group. ALFF of right CST was significantly negatively correlated to HAMA and a moderate effect size and marginal significance was found between FA of the right ATR and HAMA in GAD group.
This study used cross-sectional data and sample size was small.
Tracking microstructure and function of WM with AFQ method has the potential to distinguish different psychiatric diseases.
重度抑郁症（MDD）和广泛性焦虑症（GAD）是导致人类心理健康受损的两大主要原因。这两种精神疾病在许多症状和神经生物学特征上存在重叠，因此在某些情况下难以区分。
我们招募了102名参与者，包括40名MDD患者、32名GAD患者和30名匹配的健康对照（HC），进行多模态磁共振成像（MRI）扫描。我们使用自动纤维定量（AFQ）方法识别18条主要白质（WM）束，用分数各向异性（FA）评估微观结构，用低频波动幅度（ALFF）评估功能。采用方差分析（ANOVA）来识别组间差异。我们进一步探讨了FA和ALFF特征与临床症状的相关性。
我们确定了89名参与者的白质微观结构和功能。方差分析和事后分析显示，GAD组右侧丘脑前辐射（ATR）的FA显著高于MDD组和HC组。此外，与GAD组和HC组相比，MDD组的主要钳（FMA）、小钳（FMI）、双侧皮质脊髓束（CST）和左侧额枕下束（IFOF）的ALFF显著降低。右侧CST的ALFF与汉密尔顿焦虑量表（HAMA）显著负相关，在GAD组中，右侧ATR的FA与HAMA之间发现了中等效应量和边缘显著性。
本研究使用的是横断面数据，样本量较小。
用AFQ方法追踪WM的微观结构和功能有可能区分不同的精神疾病。
