Network Redundancy Analysis of Effective Brain Networks; a Comparison of Healthy Controls and Patients With Major Depression.
Network redundancy analysis of effective brain networks; a comparison of healthy controls and patients with major depression.
PLoS One. 2013; 8(4): e60956
Leistritz L, Weiss T, Bär KJ, De Vicofallani F, Babiloni F, Witte H, Lehmann T
This study investigated electroencephalographic correlates in chronically depressed patients compared to healthy controls using intracutaneously applied electrical pain stimulus, to better understand the interaction between pain processing and depression. A close interaction between pain and depression is generally recognized although the precise mechanisms are not yet fully understood. The present study focuses on the hypothesis that effective brain connectivity in major depression patients is altered. Multifunctional interactions between brain regions represent a robust index of effective interactions within the brain, and can be quantified by network redundancy. Thus, structural network differences between 18 normal controls and 18 major depression patients before as well as during the processing of moderately painful intracutaneous electrical stimuli were investigated on the basis of network redundancy differences. In our sample, both patients and control subjects exhibit comparable network redundancies before stimulus application. Caused by the stimulus, there is a global increase of network redundancy in both groups. This increase is diminished in the group of major depression patients. We found clear differences between patients and controls during the stimulus processing, where the network redundancy in normal controls is larger in comparison to patients. The differences might be explained by the fact that major depression patients are more restricted to the affective component of the processing. The well-established biasing to affective processing might suppress the somatosensory processing resulting in a lower number of connections within the considered network. This might then lead to a reduction in network redundancy during stimulus processing. HubMed – depression
Psychological Distress during Pregnancy in a Multi-Ethnic Community: Findings from the Born in Bradford Cohort Study.
PLoS One. 2013; 8(4): e60693
Prady SL, Pickett KE, Croudace T, Fairley L, Bloor K, Gilbody S, Kiernan KE, Wright J
Antenatal anxiety and depression are predictive of future mental distress, which has negative effects on children. Ethnic minority women are more likely to have a lower socio-economic status (SES) but it is unclear whether SES is an independent risk factor for mental health in pregnancy. We described the association between maternal mental distress and socio-demographic factors in a multi-ethnic cohort located in an economically deprived city in the UK.We defined eight distinct ethno-language groups (total N?=?8,454) and classified a threshold of distress as the 75th centile of within-group GHQ-28 scores, which we used as the outcome for univariate and multivariate logistic regression for each ethnic group and for the sample overall.Financial concerns were strongly and independently associated with worse mental health for six out of the eight ethnic groups, and for the cohort overall. In some groups, factors such as working status, education and family structure were associated with worse mental health, but for others these factors were of little importance.The diversity between and within ethnic groups in this sample underlines the need to take into consideration individual social, migration and economic circumstances and their potential effect on mental health in ethnically diverse areas. HubMed – depression
Cognitive inflexibility in obsessive-compulsive disorder and major depression is associated with distinct neural correlates.
PLoS One. 2013; 8(4): e59600
Remijnse PL, van den Heuvel OA, Nielen MM, Vriend C, Hendriks GJ, Hoogendijk WJ, Uylings HB, Veltman DJ
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) are frequently co-morbid, and dysfunctional frontal-striatal circuits have been implicated in both disorders. Neurobiological distinctions between OCD and MDD are insufficiently clear, and comparative neuroimaging studies are extremely scarce. OCD and MDD may be characterized by cognitive rigidity at the phenotype level, and frontal-striatal brain circuits constitute the neural substrate of intact cognitive flexibility. In the present study, 18 non-medicated MDD-free patients with OCD, 19 non-medicated OCD-free patients with MDD, and 29 matched healthy controls underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during performance of a self-paced letter/digit task switching paradigm. Results showed that both patient groups responded slower relative to controls during repeat events, but only in OCD patients slowing was associated with decreased error rates. During switching, patients with OCD showed increased activation of the putamen, anterior cingulate and insula, whereas MDD patients recruited inferior parietal cortex and precuneus to a lesser extent. Patients with OCD and MDD commonly failed to reveal anterior prefrontal cortex activation during switching. This study shows subtle behavioral abnormalities on a measure of cognitive flexibility in MDD and OCD, associated with differential frontal-striatal brain dysfunction in both disorders. These findings may add to the development of biological markers that more precisely characterize frequently co-morbid neuropsychiatric disorders such as OCD and MDD. HubMed – depression