Decreased Connection Between Reward Systems and Paralimbic Cortex in Depressive Patients

Frontiers in Neuroscience

Wen Xie¹  Chunlan Cai¹  Yang Chen¹  Kai Wang³  Yanghua Tian³  Gong-Jun Ji⁴  Tongjian Bai⁵  Meidan Zu⁵  Qiang Wei⁵ 

[1] Anhui Mental Health Center, Hefei, China;Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Cognition and Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Hefei, China;Collaborative Innovation Center of Neuropsychiatric Disorders and Mental Health, Hefei, China;Department of Medical Psychology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;Department of Neurology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China;

关键词: depression;    reward system;    orbitofrontal cortex;    nucleus accumbens;    temporal pole;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnins.2018.00462

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Despite decades of research on depression, the underlying pathophysiology of depression remains incompletely understood. Emerging evidence from task-based studies suggests that the abnormal reward-related processing contribute to the development of depression. It is unclear about the function pattern of reward-related circuit during resting state in depressive patients. In present study, seed-based functional connectivity was used to evaluate the functional pattern of reward-related circuit during resting state. Selected seeds were two key nodes in reward processing, medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Fifty depressive patients and 57 healthy participants were included in present study. Clinical severity of participants was assessed with Hamilton depression scale and Hamilton anxiety scale. We found that compared with healthy participants, depressive patients showed decreased connectivity of right mOFC with left temporal pole (TP_L), right insula extending to superior temporal gyrus (INS_R/STG) and increased connectivity of right mOFC with left precuneus. Similarly, decreased connectivity of left mOFC with TP_L and increased connectivity with cuneus were found in depressive patients. There is also decreased connectivity of right NAcc with bilateral temporal pole, as well as decreased connectivity of left NAcc with INS_R/STG. In addition, the functional connectivity of right nucleus accumbens with right temporal pole (TP_R) was negatively correlated with clinical severity. Our results emphasize the role of communication deficits between reward systems and paralimbic cortex in the pathophysiology of depression.

【 授权许可】

Unknown