Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 71, Issue 7, 1 April 2012, Pages 611-617
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
Evidence of a Dissociation Pattern in Resting-State Default Mode Network Connectivity in First-Episode, Treatment-Naive Major Depression Patients

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.10.035Get rights and content

Background

Imaging studies have shown that major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with altered activity patterns of the default mode network (DMN). However, the neural correlates of the resting-state DMN and MDD-related pathopsychological characteristics, such as depressive rumination and overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) phenomena, still remain unclear.

Methods

Using independent component analysis, we analyzed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data obtained from 35 first-episode, treatment-naive young adults with MDD and from 35 matched healthy control subjects.

Results

Patients with MDD exhibited higher levels of rumination and OGM than did the control subjects. We observed increased functional connectivity in the anterior medial cortex regions (especially the medial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex) and decreased functional connectivity in the posterior medial cortex regions (especially the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus) in MDD patients compared with control subjects. In the depressed group, the increased functional connectivity in the anterior medial cortex correlated positively with rumination score, while the decreased functional connectivity in the posterior medial cortex correlated negatively with OGM score.

Conclusions

We report dissociation between anterior and posterior functional connectivity in resting-state DMNs of first-episode, treatment-naive young adults with MDD. Increased functional connectivity in anterior medial regions of the resting-state DMN was associated with rumination, whereas decreased functional connectivity in posterior medial regions was associated with OGM. These results provide new evidence for the importance of the DMN in the pathophysiology of MDD and suggest that abnormal DMN activity may be an MDD trait.

Section snippets

Participants

Patients with MDD were recruited from the outpatient department at Second Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in Changsha, Hunan, China. Closely matched healthy subjects were recruited through advertisements from several colleges in Changsha. All participants were aware of the purpose of the study before participating in the study and signed an informed consent form approved by the Ethics Committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital. Finally, 37 patients with MDD (21 female patients) and

Participants

The demographic and clinical characteristics of the two groups of participants are shown in Table 1. The groups did not differ significantly in terms of age or gender. Compared with healthy control subjects, MDD patients showed higher levels of CES-D (t = 11.12, p < .001), CERQ-rumination (t = 6.24, p < .001), and AMT-OGM (t = 11.77, p < .001).

Additional correlation analyses showed that there was significantly positive correlation between the CES-D and AMT-OGM (r = .36, p < .01) in the present

Discussion

Using ICA methodology, our study demonstrated altered resting-state DMNs in first-episode, treatment-naive young adults with MDD. Compared with healthy control subjects, MDD patients showed greater functional connectivity in the MPFC/vACC areas, as well as decreased functional connectivity in the PCC/precuneus and bilateral AG areas. The relatively large effect size (Cohen's d) of the findings on those clusters lends a quantitative measure to the qualitative impression. Furthermore, the MDD

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    Authors XZ and XW contributed equally to this work.

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