Background: This study has, for the first time, investigated the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) resting state whole-brain functional connectivity in medication-free young adults with major depression (MDD), at baseline and in relationship to treatment response.Method: A total of 119 subjects: 78 MDD (24 ± 4 years.) and 41 Healthy Controls (HC) (24 ± 3 years) were included in the analysis. DRN and VTA ROIs anatomical templates were used to extract resting state fluctuations and used to derive whole-brain functional connectivity. Differences between MDD and HCs were examined, as well as the correlation of baseline Hamilton Depression and Anxiety scale scores to the baseline DRN and VTA connectivity. The relationship to treatment response was examined by investigating the correlation of the percentage decrease in depression and anxiety scale scores with baseline connectivity measures.Results: There was a significant decrease (p = 0.05; cluster-wise corrected) in DRN connectivity with the prefrontal and mid-cingulate cortex in the MDD group, compared with the HC group. DRN connectivity with temporal areas, including the hippocampus and amygdala, positively correlated with baseline depression scores (p = 0.05; cluster-wise corrected). VTA connectivity with the cuneus-occipital areas correlated with a change in depression scores (p = 0.05; cluster-wise corrected).Conclusion: Our results indicate the presence of DRN-prefrontal and DRN-cingulate cortex connectivity abnormalities in young medication-free depressed subjects when compared to HCs and that the severity of depressive symptoms correlates with DRN-amygdala/hippocampus connectivity. VTA connectivity with the parietal and occipital areas is related to antidepressant treatment associated with a decrease in depressive symptoms. Future studies need to be carried out in larger and different age group populations to confirm the findings of the study.
Adolescence is the period in human development during which several dramatic changes at biological, social, psychological and cognitive levels take place. The objective of this study was to find out psychosocial problems among school children of working and non-working mothers. A descriptive comparative research design and Probability Stratified Random sampling technique was applied in which 120 (60 working and 60 non working mothers') school students of grade 9 and 10 selected from two Government Higher Secondary Schools of Bharatpur. Structured questionnaire and Youth Pediatric Symptoms Checklist-17 (YPSC-17) were administered. Data was analyzed by using IBM SPSS version 20 and Mean, Standard Deviation, t-test and chi-square test were applied. This study showed that school children of non working mothers' (11.7%) had slightly more psychosocial problems than working mothers' (8.3%). Male respondents of non working mothers experienced more psychosocial problems (29.4 %) than female (4.7%). Prevalence of psychosocial problems was found among school children of both working and non working mothers but there is no association between the psychosocial problems and employment status of mothers. Thus maternal employment status is not the exclusive reason behind the development of psychosocial problems among school children.
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