Abstract
Gray matter (GM) atrophy is well documented in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), but its underlying mechanism remains unknown. This study aimed to examine the GM atrophy in MDD patients with diverse suicidal ideations (SIs) and to explore whether those alterations were driven by connections. GM volume was estimated in 163 patients with recurrent MDD (comprising 122 with SI [MDDSI] and 41 without SI [MDDNSI]) and 134 health controls (HCs). A two-sample t-test was used to identify GM volume abnormalities in MDD patients and their subgroups. Functional connectivity was computed between pairs of aberrant GM in both patients and HCs, which were further compared with the connectivity of random brain regions. A permutation test was performed to assess its significance. Propensity score matching (PSM) was further performed to validate the main results. Compared with HCs, the MDDNSI group exhibited GM atrophy in 24 regions, with the largest effect sizes found in the frontal and parietal lobes, while the MDDSI group exhibited more widespread GM atrophy involving 49 regions, with the largest effect sizes in the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, and the limbic system. Furthermore, patients and HCs exhibited significantly increased functional connectivity between regions with GM atrophy compared with randomly selected regions (p < 0.05). PSM analysis presented similar results to the main analysis. MDD patients had diverse GM atrophy features according to their SI tendency. Moreover, connectome architecture modulates the GM atrophy in MDD patients, implying the possibility that connections drive these pathological changes.
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Data availability
The deidentified data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions.
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We thank LetPub (https://www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.
Funding
This study has received funding by Natural Scientific Foundation of China (grant numbers: 81560283 and 81201084) and Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (grant numbers: 2022A1515012503), the Shenzhen Key Medical Discipline Construction Fund (No.SZXK041), the Shenzhen Fund for Guangdong Provincial High-level Clinical Key Specialties (No. SZGSP013) and Nanshan District Health System Technology Major Project (NSZD2023025), and Scientific and Technological Projects of Nanshan (NS2022007).
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Conception and study design (Yingwei Qiu and Gangqiang Hou), data collection or acquisition (Yingli Zhang, Ziyun Xu, Yanqing Li and Manxi Xu), statistical analysis (Shengli Chen and Shiwei Lin), interpretation of results (Shengli Chen and Xiaojing Zhang), drafting the manuscript work or revising it critically for important intellectual content (Shengli Chen, Yingli Zhang, Gangqiang Hou and Yingwei Qiu) and approval of final version to be published and agreement to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of all aspects of the work (All authors).
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Chen, S., Zhang, X., Lin, S. et al. Connectome architecture modulates the gray matter atrophy in major depression disorder patients with diverse suicidal ideations. Brain Imaging and Behavior (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-023-00826-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-023-00826-x