Orbitofrontal cortex grey matter volume is related to children’s depressive symptoms

Matthew R.J Vandermeer,Pan Liu,Ola Mohamed Ali,Andrew R Daoust,Marc F Joanisse,Deanna M Barch,Elizabeth P Hayden

doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102395

Matthew R.J Vandermeer, Pan Liu + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2020.102395

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Abstract

Adults with a history of depression show distinct patterns of grey matter volume (GMV) in frontal cortical (e.g., prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex) and limbic (e.g., anterior cingulate, amygdala, hippocampus, dorsal striatum) structures, regions relevant to the processing and regulation of reward, which is impaired in the context of depression. However, it is unclear whether these GMV associations with depression precede depressive disorder onset or whether GMV is related to early emerging symptoms or familial depression. To address these questions, we used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to examine GMV in 85 community-dwelling children (M = 11.12 years, SD = 0.63 years) screened for current and lifetime depression. Associations between children’s depressive symptoms (self- and mother-report of children’s symptoms), children’s maternal depression history, and GMV were examined. Although maternal depression history was unrelated to children’s GMV, child GMV in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was negatively related to children’s self-reported depressive symptoms, using both a priori ROI and whole-brain analyses. Moderated regression analyses indicated that girls’ GMV was negatively related to girls’ depressive symptoms (as indexed by both self- and mother-report of girls’ symptoms), whereas boys’ symptoms were positively related to GMV. Our findings suggest that brain morphology in the OFC, a region with functional roles in processes relevant to depressive symptoms (i.e., reward-based learning and reward processing), is associated with early depressive symptoms prior to the development of clinically significant depression.

Highlights

With a worldwide lifetime and annual prevalence of 14.6% and 5.5% (Bromet et al, 2011), respectively, major depression (Major Depressive Disorder; MDD) is sometimes referred to as the “common cold of mental illness.” this analogy belies the profound personal and societal consequences of MDD (Lépine and Briley, 2011)
Adults with a history of depression show distinct patterns of grey matter volume (GMV) in frontal cortical and limbic structures, regions relevant to the processing and regulation of reward, which is impaired in the context of depression
Our findings suggest that brain morphology in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region with functional roles in processes relevant to depressive symptoms, is associated with early depressive symptoms prior to the development of clinically significant depression

Summary

Introduction

With a worldwide lifetime and annual prevalence of 14.6% and 5.5% (Bromet et al, 2011), respectively, major depression (Major Depressive Disorder; MDD) is sometimes referred to as the “common cold of mental illness.” this analogy belies the profound personal and societal consequences of MDD (Lépine and Briley, 2011). It is clearly established that children can and do experience depression; for example, epidemiological research has found a 12-month prevalence of 2.7% for children 8 to 15 years of age (Merikangas et al, 2010). This is consistent with a meta-analysis of global epidemiological studies of children and adolescent mental disorder prevalence, which found a pooled prevalence estimate of 2.6% for depressive disorders (Polanczyk et al, 2015). Even in the absence of frank depressive disorder, subthreshold depressive symptoms are associated with significant functional impairment in both children (Wesselhoeft et al, 2013) and adults (Rodríguez et al, 2012), and are an established marker of youth risk for future depressive disorders (Klein, 2008; Shankman et al, 2009)

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