Fu YJ, Liu X, Wang XY, Li X, Dai LQ, Ren WY, Zeng YM, Li ZL, Yu RQ. Abnormal volumetric brain morphometry and cerebral blood flow in adolescents with depression. World J Psychiatry 2023; 13(6): 386-396 [PMID: 37383288 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v13.i6.386]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ren-Qiang Yu, Doctor, Doctor, Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Yixueyuan Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400016, China. yurenqiang@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Yu-Jia Fu, Xiao Liu, Xing-Yu Wang, Wen-yu Ren, Ren-Qiang Yu, Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
Xiao Li, Lin-Qi Dai, Department of Psychiatry, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
Yong-Ming Zeng, Department of Radiology, Chongqing HongRen Yi Hospital, Chongqing 408400, China
Zhen-Lin Li, Department of Radiology, West China Hospital, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan Province, China
Author contributions: Fu YJ and Liu X contributed to writing the original draft; Fu YJ and Liu X contributed to the work equally; Liu X, Wang XY, and Ren WY contributed to scanning magnetic resonance imaging data; Liu X analyzed the data; Li X and Dai LQ contributed to investigation; Zeng YM and Li ZL contributed to conceptualization and checking the data; Yu RQ contributed to methodology, and writing – review, and editing; All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
Supported byThe Project of Scientific Research and Innovative Experiment for College Students in Chongqing Medical University, No. 202215; and the Provincial Project of University Students Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program, No. 202210631015.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University Institutional Review Board, No. 20214801.
Informed consent statement: The legal guardians of all participants provided written informed consent, and all participants were provided with a comprehensive overview of the details of the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at yurenqiang@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn. Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ren-Qiang Yu, Doctor, Doctor, Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Yixueyuan Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400016, China. yurenqiang@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn
Received: March 31, 2023 Peer-review started: March 31, 2023 First decision: May 9, 2023 Revised: May 15, 2023 Accepted: May 24, 2023 Article in press: May 24, 2023 Published online: June 19, 2023 Processing time: 80 Days and 5 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Prior research has demonstrated that the brains of adolescents with depression exhibit distinct structural alterations. However, preliminary studies have documented the pathophysiological changes in certain brain regions, such as the cerebellum, highlighting a need for further research to support the current understanding of this disease.
AIM
To study brain changes in depressed adolescents.
METHODS
This study enrolled 34 adolescents with depression and 34 age-, sex-, and education-level-matched healthy control (HC) individuals. Structural and functional alterations were identified when comparing the brains of these two participant groups through voxel-based morphometry and cerebral blood flow (CBF) analysis, respectively. Associations between identified brain alterations and the severity of depressive symptoms were explored through Pearson correlation analyses.
RESULTS
The cerebellum, superior frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, pallidum, middle frontal gyrus, angular gyrus, thalamus, precentral gyrus, inferior temporal gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and supplementary motor areas of adolescents with depression showed an increase in brain volume compared to HC individuals. These patients with depression further presented with a pronounced drop in CBF in the left pallidum (group = 98, and peak t = - 4.4324), together with increased CBF in the right percental gyrus (PerCG) (group = 90, and peak t = 4.5382). In addition, 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale scores were significantly correlated with the increased volume in the opercular portion of the left inferior frontal gyrus (r = - 0.5231, P < 0.01).
CONCLUSION
The right PerCG showed structural and CBF changes, indicating that research on this part of the brain could offer insight into the pathophysiological causes of impaired cognition.
Core Tip: In this study, we first combined cerebral blood flow (CBF) and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to study brain alterations in adolescent depression. We also found that the brain function (CBF) changes were mainly in the left pallidum and right precentral gyrus. Meanwhile, we detected alterations in the cerebellum. Our finding about a wide range of brain structure (VBM) changes in adolescent depression contributes to better treatment and prevention strategies for depression.
