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Cited by 72Treatment of Major DepressionAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior

Pretreatment and early-treatment cortical thickness is associated with SSRI treatment response in major depressive disorder

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Bartlett, Elizabeth A., DeLorenzo, Christine, Sharma, Priya, Yang, Jie, Zhang, Mengru, Petkova, Eva, Weissman, Myrna, McGrath, Patrick J. +12 more·2018·Neuropsychopharmacology
DOI 10.1038/s41386-018-0122-9PMC PMC6135779
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Abstract

To date, there are no biomarkers for major depressive disorder (MDD) treatment response in clinical use. Such biomarkers could allow for individualized treatment selection, reducing time spent on ineffective treatments and the burden of MDD. In search of such a biomarker, multisite pretreatment and early-treatment (1 week into treatment) structural magnetic resonance (MR) images were acquired from 184 patients with MDD randomized to an 8-week trial of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) sertraline or placebo. This study represents a large, multisite, placebo-controlled effort to examine the association between pretreatment differences or early-treatment changes in cortical thickness and treatment-specific outcomes. For standardization, a novel, robust site harmonization procedure was applied to structural measures in a priori regions (rostral and caudal anterior cingulate, lateral orbitofrontal, rostral middle frontal, and hippocampus), chosen based on previously published reports. Pretreatment cortical thickness or volume did not significantly associate with SSRI response. Thickening of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex in the first week of treatment was associated with better 8-week responses to SSRI (p = 0.010). These findings indicate that frontal lobe structural alterations in the first week of treatment may be associated with long-term treatment efficacy. While these associational findings may help to elucidate the specific neural targets of SSRIs, the predictive accuracy of pretreatment or early-treatment structural alterations in classifying treatment remitters from nonremitters was limited to 63.9%. Therefore, in this large sample of adults with MDD, structural MR imaging measures were not found to be clinically translatable biomarkers of treatment response to SSRI or placebo.

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  • In imaging studies of traditional antidepressant treatment response, increased cortical thickness and cerebral blood flow in the PFC correlate with efficacy.

    “In imaging studies of traditional antidepressant treatment response, increased cortical thickness and cerebral blood flow in the PFC correlate with efficacy (108–112).”

    From Psychedelics and Other Psychoplastogens for Treating Mental Illness. (2021) · cites this paper as [108]

    The Results (section labeled “Participants”; page unavailable) report that early-treatment thickening of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex was associated with better response to sertraline. The paper reports structural MRI measures of cortical thickness and volume, but the passages do not support the attributed claim about increased PFC cerebral blood flow correlating with efficacy (searched: “cerebral blood flow perfusion PFC treatment response” and “blood flow”). (LLM, conf=0.90)

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1 of the 66 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. [23]23. Rajkowska G, Miguel-Hidalgo JJ, Wei J, Dilley G, Pittman SD, Meltzer HY, et al. Morphometric evidence for neuronal and glial prefrontal cell pathology in major depression. Biol Psychiatry. 1999;45:1085-98.
  2. [53]53. Norman TR. The new antidepressants-mechanisms of action. Issues. 1999;22: 106-8.
  3. [61]61. Pecina M, Bohnert A, Sikora M, Avery E, Langenecker S, Mickey B, et al. Placebo- activated neural systems are linked to antidepressant responses. JAMA Psy- chiatry. 2015;72:1087-94.
  4. [64]64. Stewart JW, Quitkin M. Chronicity of antidepressant efficacy in atypical depres- sion. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1989;46:1080-7.

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Authors
Bartlett, E. A., DeLorenzo, C., Sharma, P., Yang, J., Zhang, M., Petkova, E., Weissman, M., McGrath, P. J., Fava, M., Ogden, R. T., Kurian, B. T., Malchow, A., Cooper, C. M., Trombello, J. M., McInnis, M., Adams, P., Oquendo, M. A., Pizzagalli, D. A., Trivedi, M., & Parsey, R. V.
Affiliations
  • Stony Brook University (US)
  • NYU Langone Health (US)
  • Columbia University Irving Medical Center (US)
  • Columbia University (US)
  • The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (US)
  • University of Michigan (US)
  • Harvard University (US)
Corresponding author
Bartlett, Elizabeth A.
ORCID
Venue
Neuropsychopharmacology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2018-06-19
Volume
43
Issue
11
Pages
2221-2230
ISSN
  • 0893-133X (ISSN-L)
  • 1740-634X
DOI
10.1038/s41386-018-0122-9
PMC
PMC6135779
OpenAlex
W2808444231
Cited by
72
References
66
Citations by year
2026: 3 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 1
FWCI
4.36
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Neuropsychopharmacology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Columbia Academic Commons (Columbia University)
Funders
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (U01MH092250, U01MH092221)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Keywords
major depressive disorder, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, sertraline, treatment response biomarkers, cortical thickness, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, structural MRI, treatment response prediction, placebo response
MeSH terms
Machine Learning, Adult, Cerebral Cortex, Major Depressive Disorder, Double-Blind Method, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Organ Size, Treatment Outcome, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, Young Adult

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