Abnormal Reginal Homogeneity in Left Anterior Cingulum Cortex and Precentral Gyrus as a Potential Neuroimaging Biomarker for First-Episode Major Depressive Disorder

Yan Song; Chunyan Huang; Yi Zhong; Xi Wang; Guangyuan Tao

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2022.924431

Abnormal Reginal Homogeneity in Left Anterior Cingulum Cortex and Precentral Gyrus as a Potential Neuroimaging Biomarker for First-Episode Major Depressive Disorder

Front Psychiatry. 2022 Jun 1:13:924431. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.924431. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Yan Song¹, Chunyan Huang², Yi Zhong³, Xi Wang⁴, Guangyuan Tao¹

Affiliations

¹ Nanning Fifth People's Hospital, Nanning, China.
² Department of Cardiology, Tongren Hospital of Wuhan University (Wuhan Third Hospital), Wuhan, China.
³ Peking University Sixth Hospital, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, NHC Key Laboratory of Mental Health (Peking University), Beijing, China.
⁴ Department of Mental Health, Taihe Hospital, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan, China.

Abstract

Objective: There is no objective method to diagnose major depressive disorder (MDD). This study explored the neuroimaging biomarkers using the support vector machine (SVM) method for the diagnosis of MDD.

Methods: 52 MDD patients and 45 healthy controls (HCs) were involved in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scanning. Imaging data were analyzed with the regional homogeneity (ReHo) and SVM methods.

Results: Compared with HCs, MDD patients showed increased ReHo in the left anterior cingulum cortex (ACC) and decreased ReHo in the left precentral gyrus (PG). No correlations were detected between the ReHo values and the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) scores. The SVM results showed a diagnostic accuracy of 98.96% (96/97). Increased ReHo in the left ACC, and decreased ReHo in the left PG were illustrated, along with a sensitivity of 98.07%(51/52) and a specificity of100% (45/45).

Conclusion: Our results suggest that abnormal regional neural activity in the left ACC and PG may play a key role in the pathophysiological process of first-episode MDD. Moreover, the combination of ReHo values in the left ACC and precentral gyrusmay serve as a neuroimaging biomarker for first-episode MDD.

Keywords: biomarker; major depressive disorder; regional homogeneity; rs-fMRI; support vector machine.