Reconciling variable findings of white matter integrity in major depressive disorder

  • Ki Sueng Choi
  • , Paul E. Holtzheimer
  • , Alexandre R. Franco
  • , Mary E. Kelley
  • , Boadie W. Dunlop
  • , Xiaoping P. Hu
  • , Helen S. Mayberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

61 Scopus citations

Abstract

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has been used to evaluate white matter (WM) integrity in major depressive disorder (MDD), with several studies reporting differences between depressed patients and controls. However, these findings are variable and taken from relatively small studies often using suboptimal analytic approaches. The presented DTI study examined WM integrity in large samples of medication-free MDD patients (n=134) and healthy controls (n=54) using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) approaches, and rigorous statistical thresholds. Compared with health control subjects, MDD patients show no significant differences in fractional anisotropy, radial diffusivity, mean diffusivity, and axonal diffusivity with either the VBM or the TBSS approach. Our findings suggest that disrupted WM integrity does not have a major role in the neurobiology of MDD in this relatively large study using optimal imaging acquisition and analysis; however, this does not eliminate the possibility that certain patient subgroups show WM disruption associated with depression.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1332-1339
Number of pages8
JournalNeuropsychopharmacology
Volume39
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • depression
  • diffusion tensor imaging
  • fractional anisotropy
  • magnetic resonance imaging
  • major depressive disorder
  • white matter

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