Korean J Psychosom Med.  2017 Dec;25(2):153-165. 10.22722/kjpm.2017.25.2.153.

Decreased White Matter Structural Connectivity in Psychotropic Drug-Naïve Adolescent Patients with First Onset Major Depressive Disorder

• Suh E
• Kim J
• Suh S
• Park S
• Lee J
• Lee J
• Kim IS
• Lee MS

• KMID: 2411729
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.22722/kjpm.2017.25.2.153

Abstract

OBJECTIVES
Recent neuroimaging studies focus on dysfunctions in connectivity between cognitive circuits and emotional circuits: anterior cingulate cortex that connects dorsolateral orbitofrontal cortex and prefrontal cortex to limbic system. Previous studies on pediatric depression using DTI have reported decreased neural connectivity in several brain regions, including the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, superior longitudinal fasciculus. We compared the neural connectivity of psychotropic drug naïve adolescent patients with a first onset of major depressive episode with healthy controls using DTI.
METHODS
Adolescent psychotropic drug naïve patients(n=26, 10 men, 16 women; age range, 13-18 years) who visited the Korea University Guro Hospital and were diagnosed with first onset major depressive disorder were registered. Healthy controls(n=27, 5 males, 22 females; age range, 12-17 years) were recruited. Psychiatric interviews, complete psychometrics including IQ and HAM-D, MRI including diffusion weighted image acquisition were conducted prior to antidepressant administration to the patients. Fractional anisotropy(FA), radial, mean, and axial diffusivity were estimated using DTI. FMRIB Software Library-Tract Based Spatial Statistics was used for statistical analysis.
RESULTS
We did not observe any significant difference in whole brain analysis. However, ROI analysis on right superior longitudinal fasciculus resulted in 3 clusters with significant decrease of FA in patients group.
CONCLUSIONS
The patients with adolescent major depressive disorder showed statistically significant FA decrease in the DTI-based structure compared with healthy control. Therefore we suppose DTI can be used as a biomarker in psychotropic drug-naïve adolescent patients with first onset major depressive disorder.

Keyword

Adolescence; Diffusion tensor imaging; Depression; Drug-naïve; First-onset

MeSH Terms

Adolescent*
Amygdala
Brain
Depression
Depressive Disorder, Major*
Diffusion
Diffusion Tensor Imaging
Female
Gyrus Cinguli
Humans
Korea
Limbic System
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neuroimaging
Prefrontal Cortex
Psychometrics
White Matter*