Aberrant patterns of brain cerebral blood flow in Chinese han first-episode drug-naïve depressive patients with and without a family history of depression.

Shikai Wang,Lina Wang,Mincai Qian,Weifang Zheng,Jie Li,Ping Guo,Ping Jing

doi:10.18632/oncotarget.20306

Abstract

A positive family history plays a key role in the brain pathology of depression patients and previous research has confirmed that disturbed mood maintenance may be related to abnormal regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). However, little is known about whether the rCBF is different between depression patients with and without family histories. To address this question, we examined the rCBF in drug-naïve, first-episode depression patients with and without family histories of depression using a 3D pseudo-continuous arterial spin-labelling technique. We found that decreased rCBF was predominantly observed in the patients without family histories, while decreased and increased rCBF co-existed in patients with family histories. The observed brain regions with altered rCBF were associated with affection processing, such as the prefrontal, occipital and insular areas. However the patterns of rCBF alteration observed in the present study were different from those found in previous studies where patients were compared with healthy controls. Our present findings, together with the findings from previous studies have prompted the need of a long-term follow-up study to characterize the brain features of the developmental trajectory of depression and investigate the targets for precise, personalized treatments.

Highlights

Many previous studies confirmed that genetics play a key role in the etiology of major depressive disorder [1, 2] and many previous studies confirmed that depression patients with a positive family history are more inclined to develop treatment refractory depression [3]
A positive family history plays a key role in the brain pathology of depression patients and previous research has confirmed that disturbed mood maintenance may be related to abnormal regional cerebral blood flow
Previous study found that decreased ReHo were located in the left insula, superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus and cerebellumanterior lobe in the patients with treatment resistant depression (TRD), simultaneously, increased ReHo were found in the left superior temporal gyrus, cerebellum posterior lobe, cerebellum anterior lobe, the right cerebellar tonsil and bilateral fusiform gyrus in the TRD patients [15]

Summary

Introduction

Many previous studies confirmed that genetics play a key role in the etiology of major depressive disorder [1, 2] and many previous studies confirmed that depression patients with a positive family history are more inclined to develop treatment refractory depression [3]. Previous study found that decreased ReHo were located in the left insula, superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, lingual gyrus and cerebellumanterior lobe in the patients with treatment resistant depression (TRD), simultaneously, increased ReHo were found in the left superior temporal gyrus, cerebellum posterior lobe, cerebellum anterior lobe, the right cerebellar tonsil and bilateral fusiform gyrus in the TRD patients [15]. Found that decreased global FCD was located in the left postcentral and precentral gyri, right fusiform gyrus and lingual gyrus [20] Taken together, these findings inclined to support the hypothesis that decreased regional activity and network homogeneity in the frontal cortex may be the key impairment of the fronto-limbic network in the patients with MDD [19]. All of the abovementioned findings converge to suggest that the brain regions that participate in emotion regulation, reward regulation, memory and executive function regulation all show structural and functional abnormalities and cerebral blood follow disturbances

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion