Aberrant Gray Matter Networks in Non-comorbid Medication-Naive Patients With Major Depressive Disorder and Those With Social Anxiety Disorder.

Youjin Zhao,Du Lei,Wenjing Zhang,Chandan Shah,Su Lui,Ziqi Chen,Yuan Xiao,Running Niu,Qiyong Gong

doi:10.3389/fnhum.2020.00172

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) are among the most prevalent and frequently co-occurring psychiatric disorders in adults and may have, at least in part, a common etiology. However, the unique and the shared neuroanatomical characteristics of the two disorders have not been fully identified. The aim of this study was to compare the topological organization of gray matter networks between non-comorbid medication-naive MDD patients and SAD patients. High-resolution T1-weighted images were acquired from 37 non-comorbid medication-naive MDD patients, 24 non-comorbid medication-naive SAD patients, and 41 healthy controls. Single-subject gray matter graphs were extracted from structural MRI scans, and whole-brain neuroanatomic organization was compared across the three groups. The relationships between brain network measures and clinical characteristics were analyzed. Relative to healthy controls, both the MDD and the SAD patients showed global decreases in clustering coefficient, normalized clustering coefficient, and small-worldness and locally decreased nodal centralities and morphological connections in the left insular, lingual, and calcarine cortices. Compared with healthy controls, the SAD patients exhibited increased nodal centralities and morphological connections mainly involving the prefrontal cortex and the sensorimotor network. Furthermore, compared to the SAD patients, the MDD patients showed increased characteristic path length, reduced global efficiency, and decreased nodal centralities and morphological connections in the right middle occipital gyrus and the right postcentral gyrus. Our findings provide new evidence for shared and specific similarity-based gray matter network alterations in MDD and SAD and emphasize that the psychopathological changes in the right middle occipital gyrus and the right postcentral gyrus might be different between the two disorders.

Highlights

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and are frequently comorbid with each other (Kessler et al, 2005b)
Since we previously demonstrated common and distinct GM volume and cortical thickness abnormalities in MDD patients and SAD patients (Zhao et al, 2017), we hypothesize that these patients would manifest some common and distinct alterations in similaritybased GM networks and that these disruptions would be associated with the severity of the clinical symptoms
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to explore similarity-based, single-subject GM network abnormalities between non-comorbid medication-naive MDD patients and SAD patients. We found that both MDD patients and SAD patients exhibited a global decrease in clustering coefficient, normalized clustering coefficient, and small-worldness and locally decreased nodal centralities and morphological connections in the left insular, lingual, and calcarine cortices

Summary

Introduction

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and social anxiety disorder (SAD) are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and are frequently comorbid with each other (Kessler et al, 2005b). From a clinical point of view, depression and anxiety share some symptoms, such as irritability (Vidal-Ribas et al, 2016), attention bias (Vidal-RibasSylvester et al, 2016), emotion dysregulation (Hofmann et al, 2012), and impaired social functioning (Saris et al, 2017). They respond to the same treatment strategies (Ressler and Mayberg, 2007). The unique and the shared neuroanatomical characteristics of the two disorders have not been fully identified

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