A pilot fMRI study of the effect of stressful factors on the onset of depression in female patients

Abstract

The goal of this study was to observe the differences in brain activation under negative emotional picture stimuli in drug-naïve female patients with a first major depressive episode, comparing patients with and without stressful life experiences prior to the onset of depression. Using a 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, 18 patients who experienced stressful life events (SLEs) and 15 patients who did not experience SLEs were scanned under a task-fMRI paradigm designed to distinguish between negative and neutral neural responses to visual stimuli. SPM 8.0 software was used to process the fMRI data; the significantly activated brain regions were recorded and organized in the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) standard space. Upon stimulation with negative emotional pictures, depressed patients who had experienced SLEs showed significantly increased activation of the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral precentral gyrus, bilateral postcentral gyrus, bilateral middle frontal gyrus, right precuneus, left paracentral lobule, bilateral thalamus, bilateral hippocampus, and left cerebellum when compared with depressed patients who did not experience SLEs.The brain regions that showed increased activation in depressed patients who experienced SLEs were primarily located in the neural circuits of the emotion processing system; this result likely indicates that these patients may have an increased negative cognitive bias in the perception, experience, and memory of negative emotional events, as well as their response to those events.

State-Related Alterations of Spontaneous Neural Activity in Current and Remitted Depression Revealed by Resting-State fMRI

“…Depression-associated abnormalities of the middle occipital gyrus were related with abnormal neuropsychological activity, leading to a motor block and lowered attention (Yu et al, 2017). As described previously, this increased brain activity may be due to the state-related compensatory effect in the left middle occipital gyrus, which plays an active role in cognitive processing, including visual information processing and verbal episodic memory (Li et al, 2016).…”

Stress and the brain: Perceived stress mediates the impact of the superior frontal gyrus spontaneous activity on depressive symptoms in late adolescence

“…We first observed that the fALFF in the left SFG was positively linked with perceived stress, which is consistent with the finding of a TB‐fMRI experiment showing an association between perceived stress and activity in the medial SFG during a monetary incentive delay task (Treadway et al, ). The functioning of the SFG has also been found to be associated with acute psychosocial stress (Pruessner et al, ) and chronic life stress experiences (Li et al, ). Evidence from two voxel‐based morphometry studies has further shown that the SFG gray matter structure is related to individuals' early life stressful events (Tyborowska et al, ) and recent stressful events (Ansell, Rando, Tuit, Guarnaccia, & Sinha, ).…”

Larger Volume and Different Activation of the Brain in Response to Threat in Military Officers

“…Considering the three war conditions together, the military group suggested higher activations in the lingual and superior lateral occipital gyri, as well as the cuneus, all in the occipital lobe. In general, this brain lobe is involved in visual perception (Li et al, 2015); perceiving the external stimuli; and transferring data to the brain regions related to emotion processing and responding (Adolphs, 2001). Additionally, these areas are involved in feature-extraction, shape recognition, and the integration of visual, phonological, and semantic information (Merriam & Colby, 2005); visuomotor transformations necessary to orient in space, like juggling (Goodale & Milner, 1992); processing an object's position (Gerber et al, 2014), or the speed of a moving stimulus (Rodman & Albright, 1987).…”