OBJECTIVE: Major depressive disorder (MDD) occurs frequently in adolescents, but the neurobiology of depression in youth is poorly understood. Structural neuroimaging studies in both adult and pediatric populations have implicated frontolimbic neural networks in the pathophysiology of MDD. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which measures white matter (WM) microstructure, is a promising tool for examining neural connections and how they may be abnormal in MDD. METHOD: We used two separate approaches to analyze DTI data in adolescents with MDD (n = 14) compared with healthy volunteers (n = 14). RESULTS: The first, hypothesis-driven approach was to use probabilistic tractography to delineate tracts arising from the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Adolescents with MDD demonstrated lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in the WM tract connecting subgenual ACC to amygdala in the right hemisphere. The second, exploratory approach was to conduct a voxelwise comparison of FA. This analysis revealed 10 clusters where adolescents with MDD had significantly lower (uncorrected) FA than the healthy group within WM tracts including right and left uncinate and supragenual cingulum. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary data support the hypothesis that altered WM microstructure in frontolimbic neural pathways may contribute to the pathophysiology of MDD in adolescents.
OBJECTIVE: Major depressive disorder (MDD) occurs frequently in adolescents, but the neurobiology of depression in youth is poorly understood. Structural neuroimaging studies in both adult and pediatric populations have implicated frontolimbic neural networks in the pathophysiology of MDD. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which measures white matter (WM) microstructure, is a promising tool for examining neural connections and how they may be abnormal in MDD. METHOD: We used two separate approaches to analyze DTI data in adolescents with MDD (n = 14) compared with healthy volunteers (n = 14). RESULTS: The first, hypothesis-driven approach was to use probabilistic tractography to delineate tracts arising from the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Adolescents with MDD demonstrated lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in the WM tract connecting subgenual ACC to amygdala in the right hemisphere. The second, exploratory approach was to conduct a voxelwise comparison of FA. This analysis revealed 10 clusters where adolescents with MDD had significantly lower (uncorrected) FA than the healthy group within WM tracts including right and left uncinate and supragenual cingulum. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary data support the hypothesis that altered WM microstructure in frontolimbic neural pathways may contribute to the pathophysiology of MDD in adolescents.
Authors: J N Giedd; J Blumenthal; N O Jeffries; F X Castellanos; H Liu; A Zijdenbos; T Paus; A C Evans; J L Rapoport Journal: Nat Neurosci Date: 1999-10 Impact factor: 24.884
Authors: J Kaufman; B Birmaher; D Brent; U Rao; C Flynn; P Moreci; D Williamson; N Ryan Journal: J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry Date: 1997-07 Impact factor: 8.829
Authors: Isabelle M Rosso; Christina M Cintron; Ronald J Steingard; Perry F Renshaw; Ashley D Young; Deborah A Yurgelun-Todd Journal: Biol Psychiatry Date: 2005-01-01 Impact factor: 13.382
Authors: Julia F Lehman; Benjamin D Greenberg; Cameron C McIntyre; Steve A Rasmussen; Suzanne N Haber Journal: J Neurosci Date: 2011-07-13 Impact factor: 6.167
Authors: Mary L Phillips; Henry W Chase; Yvette I Sheline; Amit Etkin; Jorge R C Almeida; Thilo Deckersbach; Madhukar H Trivedi Journal: Am J Psychiatry Date: 2015-02-01 Impact factor: 18.112
Authors: Lauren Delaparte; Fang-Cheng Yeh; Phil Adams; Ashley Malchow; Madhukar H Trivedi; Maria A Oquendo; Thilo Deckersbach; Todd Ogden; Diego A Pizzagalli; Maurizio Fava; Crystal Cooper; Melvin McInnis; Benji T Kurian; Myrna M Weissman; Patrick J McGrath; Daniel N Klein; Ramin V Parsey; Christine DeLorenzo Journal: J Psychiatr Res Date: 2017-01-24 Impact factor: 4.791
Authors: Kaja Z LeWinn; Colm G Connolly; Jing Wu; Miroslav Drahos; Fumiko Hoeft; Tiffany C Ho; Alan N Simmons; Tony T Yang Journal: J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry Date: 2014-06-04 Impact factor: 8.829
Authors: Erica L Tatham; Geoff B C Hall; Darren Clark; Jane Foster; Rajamannar Ramasubbu Journal: Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci Date: 2016-06-08 Impact factor: 5.270
Authors: Yuwen Hung; Zeynep M Saygin; Joseph Biederman; Dina Hirshfeld-Becker; Mai Uchida; Oliver Doehrmann; Michelle Han; Xiaoqian J Chai; Tara Kenworthy; Pavel Yarmak; Schuyler L Gaillard; Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli; John D E Gabrieli Journal: Cereb Cortex Date: 2017-09-01 Impact factor: 5.357