Affective traits and history of depression are related to ventral striatum connectivity

Abstract

Introduction Studying remitted Major Depressive Disorder (rMDD) facilitates a better understanding of neural mechanisms for risk, given that confounding effects of active symptoms are removed. Disrupted functional connectivity has been reported in multiple networks in MDD. However, no study to date of rMDD has specifically examined connectivity of the ventral striatum (VS), a region highly implicated in reward and motivation. We investigated functional connectivity of the VS in individuals with and without a history of MDD, and in relation to affective personality traits. Methods Forty-two individuals with rMDD and 28 healthy controls across two sites completed resting-state fMRI and the Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System Scale. Voxel-wise, whole-brain comparisons were conducted across and between groups for four seeds: left and right inferior VS (VSi), left and right superior VS (VSs). Results VSs connectivity to temporal and subcortical regions including the putamen and amygdala was positive and greater in HCs compared to rMDD individuals. Across groups, VSi connectivity was positively correlated with trait reward-responsiveness in somatomotor regions. Across groups, VSs connectivity was positively correlated with trait drive, particularly in the putamen, parahippocampal, and inferior temporal gyrus, and was negatively associated with trait behavioral inhibition in the anterior cingulate, frontal gyri, and insula. Limitations Limitations include scanning at two sites and using multiple comparisons. Discussion Group connectivity differences emerged from the VSs rather than VSi. VSs showed associations with trait drive and behavioral inhibition, whereas VSi corrrelated with reward-responsiveness. Depression history and affective traits contribute meaningful and specific information about VS connectivity in understanding risk for MDD.

Decreased Connection Between Reward Systems and Paralimbic Cortex in Depressive Patients

“…Indeed, there are strong structural connectivity between insula and acknowledged reward-related regions ( Leong et al, 2016 ; Ghaziri et al, 2017 ). In line with our finding, previous neuroimaging study suggested that high risk for depression is related with the abnormal connection between OFC and insula during reward-related task ( DelDonno et al, 2017 ). Based on the crucial role of insula in representation of emotional awareness and interoceptive signals, this connectional abnormity was interpreted that the impaired integration of the value of loss with the emotional and interoceptive awareness is correlated with the occurrence of depression ( Rolls, 2016 ).…”

Cognitive control and network disruption in remitted depression: a correlate of childhood adversity

“…Previous research has demonstrated network disruptions associated with CA (Pechtel and Pizzagalli, 2011 ; McEwen and Morrison, 2013 ; Philip et al ., 2013 ; Duncan et al ., 2015 ; Demir-Lira et al ., 2016 ). We have previously reported network disruptions related to depression in relation to ventral striatum, reward and personality traits (DelDonno et al ., 2017 ), hippocampus and memory (Rao et al ., 2016 ) and cognitive control and rumination (Stange et al ., 2017 ). The current study is the first to examine whether network alterations beyond those accounted for by rMDD diagnosis may be attributed to CA.…”

Chronic psychosocial stressors are associated with alterations in salience processing and corticostriatal connectivity

“…Striatal seeds consisting of bilateral 3.5 mm radius spheres were placed in the inferior ventral striatum, superior ventral striatum, dorsal caudate, dorsal rostral putamen, dorsal caudal putamen, and ventral rostral putamen. These predefined seeds were initially reported by Di Martino et al (2008) and have been repeatedly used in investigations of striatal connectivity (DelDonno et al, 2017; Fornito et al, 2013; Gabbay et al, 2013; Sarpal et al, 2016).…”