Some people may be predisposed to depression, MRI study shows
A new imaging study brings a whole different meaning to the phrase “wired differently,” revealing that specific brain connectivity patterns might make people more vulnerable to developing depression.
Using “deep scanning” functional MRI exams, experts determined that the span of one specific brain network is especially large in individuals with depression. Researchers published their findings this week in Nature, where they detailed how a longitudinal imaging analysis revealed that people suffering from depression show frontostriatal salience networks that expand nearly twofold in the cortex on imaging exams.
Advanced imaging techniques have long been deployed to assess how brain activity patterns affect mood and behavior, but data on how these patterns change over time has been lacking, authors of the paper noted.
“Depression is, by definition, an episodic psychiatric syndrome; it’s characterized by periods of low mood mixed in with periods of wellness,” senior author Conor Liston, MD, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine, and colleagues explained. “What are the mechanisms that control those transitions over time?”
For the study, researchers recruited a small group of individuals diagnosed with depression to undergo multiple fMRI scans over a period of several months. Participants were scanned dozens of times, with some having exams that spanned more than a year. Their imaging was compared alongside a group of participants who did not report depressive symptoms and had not been diagnosed with the condition.
On imaging, the team observed significant alterations of connectivity in the salience network of the majority of those who were diagnosed with depression. The group expanded on their findings by analyzing similar fMRI sequences in larger groups of patients, both with and without depression, and again noted larger salience networks in individuals with depression.
Through this, they noticed that these findings were visible in children as well, and that having a larger salience network as a child was associated with developing depression later in life. This prompted questions about whether some people, regardless of their upbringing and early childhood experiences, might have increased susceptibility to depression.
Regions included in the salience network are responsible for detecting and responding to various stimuli. The network is believed to be associated with reward processing and could affect a person’s ability to feel joy and pleasure, so it would make sense that alterations in the connectivity of these regions may underlie depressive symptoms, the group suggested.
Although the team acknowledged that their findings need to be replicated, they signaled that their work could help to guide additional research that analyzes the effect of various mental health treatments.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.