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Cited by 29Treatment of Major DepressionNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesFunctional Brain Connectivity Studies

Volumetric Deficit Within the Fronto-Limbic-Striatal Circuit in First-Episode Drug Naïve Patients With Major Depression Disorder

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Zhang, Yiran, Yang, Yun, Zhu, Licheng, Zhu, Qing, Jia, Yuxi, Zhang, Lan, Peng, Qinmu, Wang, Jiazheng +3 more·2021·Frontiers in Psychiatry
DOI 10.3389/fpsyt.2020.600583PMC PMC7854541
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Abstract

Background: Depression is a major psychiatric disorder and the leading cause of disability worldwide. Previous evidence suggested certain pattern of structural alterations were induced by major depression disorder (MDD) with heterogeneity due to patients' clinical characteristics and proposed that early impairment of fronto-limbic-striatal circuit was involved. Yet the hypothesis couldn't be replicated fully. Accordingly, this study aimed to validate this hypothesis in a new set of first-episode, drug naïve MDD patients and further explore the neuroimaging biomarker of illness severity using whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Materials and Methods: A total of 93 participants, 30 patients with first-episode medication-naïve MDD, and 63 healthy controls were enrolled in the study. VBM was applied to analyze differences in the gray matter volume (GMV) between these two groups. The correlation between the GMV of the identified brain regions and the severity of clinical symptoms quantified by the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) was further conducted in the post-hoc analysis to confirm the role of GMV structural alteration in clinical symptoms. Results: Our results revealed that the brain gray matter volume of the prefrontal lobe, limbic system, striatum, cerebellum, temporal lobe, and bilateral lingual gyri were significantly decreased in MDD patients compared with healthy controls. Besides, the HAMD scores were negatively correlated with GMV of the right insula and positively correlated with that of the right lingual gyrus. Conclusions: Our findings provide robust evidence that gray matter structural abnormalities within the prefronto-limbic-striatal circuit are implicated in the pathophysiology of MDD at an early stage without confounding influence of medication status. Besides, our data suggest that the cerebellum, lingual gyrus, and fusiform gyrus should also be integrated into the brain alterations in MDD. Future synthesis of individual neuroimaging studies and more advanced statistical analysis comparing subfields of the aforementioned regions are warranted to further shed light on the neurobiology of the disease and assist in the diagnosis of this burdensome disorder.

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  • Clinical imaging studies have demonstrated robust structural and functional deficits in the PFC across a range of disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia, PTSD, alcohol abuse disorder, and substance abuse disorder.

    “Clinical imaging studies have confirmed the results of these studies, demonstrating robust structural and functional deficits in the PFC across a range of disorders including depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), schizophrenia, PTSD, alcohol abuse disorder, and substance abuse disorder (84–103).”

    From Psychedelics and Other Psychoplastogens for Treating Mental Illness. (2021) · cites this paper as [92]

    The Discussion (Prefronto-Limbic-Striatal Circuit; page not provided) reports reduced prefrontal gray-matter volume in patients with major depression and cites functional abnormalities in the same region. The paper does not establish the claimed structural and functional deficits across the other listed disorders, so it supports only the depression portion of the sentence. (LLM, conf=0.88)

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Authors
Zhang, Y., Yang, Y., Zhu, L., Zhu, Q., Jia, Y., Zhang, L., Peng, Q., Wang, J., Liu, J., Fan, W., & Wang, J.
Affiliations
  • Wuhan Union Hospital (CN)
  • Huazhong University of Science and Technology (CN)
Corresponding author
  • Liu, Jia
  • Fan, Wenliang
  • Wang, Jing
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychiatry
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2021-01-20
Volume
11
Pages
600583-600583
ISSN
1664-0640 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyt.2020.600583
PMC
PMC7854541
OpenAlex
W3182829872
Cited by
29
References
61
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3
FWCI
3.36
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China (81701653, 81701673, 82001801)
  • Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province (2019CFB375, 2019CFB497, 2019CFB639)
Topics
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
Keywords
major depressive disorder, first-episode depression, drug-naive patients, gray matter volume, brain structural changes, insula, lingual gyrus, cerebellum, fusiform gyrus, depression severity, neuroimaging biomarkers, depression pathophysiology

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