Aberrant interhemispheric functional connectivity in major depressive disorder with and without anhedonia

Shaojia Lu; Jiamin Shao; Qian Feng; Congchong Wu; Zhe Fang; Lili Jia; Zheng Wang; Shaohua Hu; Yi Xu; Manli Huang

doi:10.1186/s12888-022-04343-x

Aberrant interhemispheric functional connectivity in major depressive disorder with and without anhedonia

BMC Psychiatry. 2022 Nov 8;22(1):688. doi: 10.1186/s12888-022-04343-x.

Authors

Shaojia Lu^#¹, Jiamin Shao^#^{1

2}, Qian Feng^#^{1

2}, Congchong Wu^{1

2}, Zhe Fang^{1

2}, Lili Jia^{1

2

3}, Zheng Wang¹, Shaohua Hu¹, Yi Xu⁴, Manli Huang⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Key Laboratory of Mental Disorder's Management of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Engineering Center for Mathematical Mental Health, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
² Faculty of Clinical Medicine, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
³ Department of Clinical Psychology, The Fifth Peoples' Hospital of Lin'an District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Key Laboratory of Mental Disorder's Management of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Engineering Center for Mathematical Mental Health, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. xuyizju@zju.edu.cn.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry, The First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Key Laboratory of Mental Disorder's Management of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Engineering Center for Mathematical Mental Health, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. huangmanli@zju.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objective: Anhedonia is a core feature of major depressive disorder (MDD), and as a subtype of depression, MDD with anhedonia may have exceptional neurobiological mechanisms. However, the neuropathology of anhedonia in MDD remains unclear. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the brain functional differences between MDD with and without anhedonia.

Methods: A total of 62 individuals including 22 MDD patients with anhedonia, 20 MDD patients without anhedonia, and 20 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited for this study. All participants underwent 3.0-T functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) was employed to quantitatively describe bilateral functional connectivity. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed to obtain brain regions with significant differences among three groups and then post hoc tests were calculated for inter-group comparisons.

Results: The ANOVA revealed significant VMHC differences among three groups in the bilateral middle temporal gyrus (MTG), superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) (F = 10.47 ~ 15.09, p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected). Relative to HCs, MDD with anhedonia showed significantly decreased VMHC in the bilateral MTG (t = -5.368, p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected), as well as increased VMHC in the bilateral SFG (t = -4.696, p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected). Compared to MDD without anhedonia, MDD with anhedonia showed significantly decreased VMHC in the bilateral MTG and IPL (t = -5.629 ~ -4.330, p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected), while increased VMHC in the bilateral SFG (t = 3.926, p < 0.05, AlphaSim corrected). However, no significant difference was found between MDD without anhedonia and HCs.

Conclusion: The present findings suggest that MDD with and without anhedonia exhibit different patterns of interhemispheric connectivity. Anhedonia in MDD is related to aberrant interhemispheric connectivity within brain regions involved in the frontal-temporal-parietal circuit.

Keywords: Anhedonia; Functional magnetic resonance imaging; Major depressive disorder; Voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Anhedonia
Brain / diagnostic imaging
Brain Mapping
Depressive Disorder, Major* / diagnostic imaging
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods