Abnormal dynamic functional connectivity of thalamic subregions in patients with first-episode, drug-naïve major depressive disorder

Yanting Zheng; Yujie Wu; Yujie Liu; Danian Li; Xinyu Liang; Yaoping Chen; Hanyue Zhang; Yan Guo; Ruoxi Lu; Jinhui Wang; Shijun Qiu

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1152332

Abnormal dynamic functional connectivity of thalamic subregions in patients with first-episode, drug-naïve major depressive disorder

Front Psychiatry. 2023 May 10:14:1152332. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1152332. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yanting Zheng¹, Yujie Wu², Yujie Liu^{1

3}, Danian Li⁴, Xinyu Liang⁵, Yaoping Chen⁶, Hanyue Zhang³, Yan Guo⁵, Ruoxi Lu⁵, Jinhui Wang^{7

8

9

10}, Shijun Qiu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
² Department of Clinical Psychology, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
³ Department of Radiology, Guangzhou First People's Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁴ Cerebropathy Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁵ The First School of Clinical Medicine, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁶ The Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.
⁷ Institute for Brain Research and Rehabilitation, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
⁸ Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, China.
⁹ Center for Studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁰ Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Background: Recent studies have shown that major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with altered intrinsic functional connectivity (FC) of the thalamus; however, investigations of these alterations at a finer time scale and the level of thalamic subregions are still lacking.

Methods: We collected resting-state functional MRI data from 100 treatment-naïve, first-episode MDD patients and 99 age-, gender- and education-matched healthy controls (HCs). Seed-based whole-brain sliding window-based dFC analyses were performed for 16 thalamic subregions. Between-group differences in the mean and variance of dFC were determined using threshold-free cluster enhancement algorithm. For significant alterations, there relationships with clinical and neuropsychological variables were further examined via bivariate and multivariate correlation analyses.

Results: Of all thalamic subregions, only the left sensory thalamus (Stha) showed altered variance of dFC in the patients characterized by increases with the left inferior parietal lobule, left superior frontal gyrus, left inferior temporal gyrus, and left precuneus, and decreases with multiple frontal, temporal, parietal, and subcortical regions. These alterations accounted for, to a great extent, clinical, and neuropsychological characteristics of the patients as revealed by the multivariate correlation analysis. In addition, the bivariate correlation analysis revealed a positive correlation between the variance of dFC between the left Stha and right inferior temporal gurus/fusiform and childhood trauma questionnaires scores (r = 0.562, P < 0.001).

Conclusion: These findings suggest that the left Stha is the most vulnerable thalamic subregion to MDD, whose dFC alterations may serve as potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of the disease.

Keywords: childhood trauma questionnaires; dynamic functional connectivity; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); major depressive disorder (MDD); thalamic subregion.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 81920108019, 91649117, 81771344, 81471251, and 81922036), Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2019B030335001), Innovation and Strong School Project of Education Department of Guangdong Province (2014GKXM034), Science and Technology Plan Project of Guangzhou (2018-1002-SF-0442 and 202201011407), and Guangzhou Key Laboratory (09002344).