Publications by authors named "Kerang Zhang"

Article Synopsis
  • Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) show cognitive impairment and childhood trauma (CT) may increase the risk of MDD and cognitive dysfunction, although its specific impact on MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs) was not fully understood.
  • In a study involving 909 participants, the relationship between MDD, CT, and cognitive function was assessed using tests, and it was found that the effects of CT on cognitive performance disappeared when accounting for MDD diagnosis and education level.
  • After treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), CT did not significantly affect changes in cognitive function or depressive symptoms, suggesting the influence of CT on cognitive function in MDD patients may be over-stated.
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Previous studies in small samples have identified inconsistent cortical abnormalities in major depressive disorder (MDD). Despite genetic influences on MDD and the brain, it is unclear how genetic risk for MDD is translated into spatially patterned cortical vulnerability. Here, we initially examined voxel-wise differences in cortical function and structure using the largest multi-modal MRI data from 1660 MDD patients and 1341 controls.

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Background: While depression is increasing worldwide, some patients are diagnosed as having Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), but others are diagnosed with minor depression, however, the potential neuro mechanism is unknown.

Methods: Sixty-two patients with minor depression, 44 adolescents with MDD and 54 healthy adolescents participated in this study. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), both HAMD and HAMA data were collected from all of the participants.

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Objective: Most patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) have somatic symptoms, but little studies pay attention in the microbial-inflammatory mechanisms of these somatic symptoms. Our study aimed to investigate alterations in gut microbiota and its correlation with inflammatory marker levels and somatic symptoms in first-episode treatment-naive MDD.

Methods: Subjects contained 160 MDD patients and 101 healthy controls (HCs).

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Article Synopsis
  • Inflammatory depression is a hard-to-treat type of depression that may be linked to gut bacteria and inflammation, but it's not fully understood yet.
  • In patients with this condition, researchers found certain bacteria in their gut that were different from those in healthy people, and they noticed problems with a specific acid called butanoate.
  • When scientists studied mice, they found that changing the gut bacteria helped reduce inflammation and improve depression-like behaviors, suggesting that the gut might play a big role in this type of depression.
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Objective: This study aimed to understand the long-term symptom trajectories of Chinese patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) using piecewise latent growth modeling and growth mixture modeling. The investigation also aimed to identify the baseline characteristics indicative of poorer treatment outcomes.

Methods: A total of 558 outpatients with MDD were assessed using a sequence of surveys.

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Studies investigating gut microbiota composition in depressive disorder have yielded mixed results. The aim of our study was to compare gut microbiome between people with depressive disorder and healthy controls. We did a meta-analysis and meta-regression of studies by searching PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, Scopus, Ovid, Cochrane Library, ProQuest, and PsycINFO for articles published from database inception to March 07, 2022.

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Background: This study aims to explore the psychological characteristics, related emotional problems and potential NIR brain function mechanism of adolescents who refuse to attend school.

Methods: The study included 38 adolescents (12-18 years old) who were not attending school and 35 healthy controls (12-18 years old) who are attending school regularly. Participants completed (1) general demographics, (2) Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), (3) Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS), (4) Zung Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and (5) Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90).

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Background: The social signal transduction theory of depression proposes that life stress can be transformed into inflammatory signals, and ultimately lead to the development of major depressive disorder (MDD). The hypotheses of this study were: (1) The pro-inflammatory effect of life stress was only seen in patients with MDD, but not in healthy controls (HCs); (2) Inflammation can mediate the relationship between life stress and depressive symptoms.

Methods: This study included 170 MDD patients and 196 HCs, and 13 immune-inflammatory biomarkers closely related to MDD were measured, principal component analysis (PCA) was adopted to extract the inflammatory index.

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is the most prevalent form of depression and is becoming a great challenge for public health and medical practice. Although first-line antidepressants offer therapeutic benefits, about 35% of depressed patients are not adequately treated, creating a substantial unmet medical need. A multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase 3 clinical trial was conducted in patients with MDD in China to assess the efficacy and safety of ansofaxine (LY03005), a potential triple reuptake inhibitor of serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

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Background: Relevant studies have shown that gut microbiome plays an important role in the occurrence, development and treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). Many studies have also shown that, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) antidepressants can improve the symptoms of depression by changing the distribution of gut microbiome, Here we investigated whether a distinct gut microbiome was associated with Major depressive disorder (MDD), and how it was modulated by SSRIs antidepressants.

Method: In this study, we analyzed the gut microbiome composition of 62 patients with first-episode MDD and 41 matched healthy controls, before SSRIs antidepressants treatment, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing.

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Background: Differentiating bipolar depression (BD) from unipolar depression (UD) is a major clinical challenge. Identifying the potential classifying biomarkers between these two diseases is vital to optimize personalized management of depressed individuals.

Methods: Here, we aimed to integrate neuroimaging and clinical data with machine learning method to classify BD and UD at the individual level.

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Objective: Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) is an effective and evidence-based treatment for major depressive disorder (MDD). This retrospective study aimed to explore the efficacy of add-on iTBS treatment in MDD in real-world clinical practice.

Methods: One hundred and fifty-nine inpatients with MDD in a general hospital were included in this study.

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Objective: Somatic symptoms are common comorbidities of major depressive disorder (MDD), and negatively impact the course and severity of the disease. In order to enrich the understanding of the pathological mechanism and clarify the neurobiological basis of somatic symptoms in depression, we attempted to explore the changes of brain structure and function in a large sample between depression with and without somatic symptoms.

Methods: Structure magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were collected from 342 patients with somatic symptoms (SD), 208 patients without somatic symptoms (NSD), and 510 healthy controls (HCs) based on the REST-meta-MDD project.

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Background: Due to substantial comorbidities of major depressive disorder (MDD) and anxiety disorder (AN), these two disorders must be distinguished. Accurate identification and diagnosis facilitate effective and prompt treatment. EEG biomarkers are a potential research hotspot for neuropsychiatric diseases.

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Background: The neurobiology of the Major depressive disorder (MDD) with anxiety is still unclear. The present study aimed to explore the brain correlates of MDD with and without anxiety in men and women during resting-state fMRI.

Methods: Two hundred and fifty-four patients with MDD (MDD with anxiety, N = 152) and MDD without anxiety, N = 102) and 228 healthy controls (HCs) participated in this study.

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Article Synopsis
  • Despite advancements in neuroimaging research on major depressive disorder (MDD), findings remain inconsistent due to small sample sizes and varying analysis methods, prompting the launch of the Depression Imaging REsearch ConsorTium (DIRECT) and the REST-meta-MDD project, which pooled data from 2,428 functional brain images.
  • The initial analyses revealed significant changes in brain connectivity and dynamics, laying the groundwork for future research and highlighting the need for more comprehensive studies across diverse populations.
  • DIRECT's second phase aims to broaden the investigation of brain alterations in MDD by including various ethnic groups and other mental health disorders, while also focusing on long-term studies of treatment effects and improving neuroimaging methodologies for clinical applications.
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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the nucleus accumbens (NAc), which is key in reward processing and its role in major depressive disorder (MDD).
  • Through meta- and mega-analysis of resting-state fMRI data, it was found that patients with recurrent MDD exhibited decreased functional connectivity within the NAc-based reward circuits.
  • The research highlights that disrupted connectivity between the reward network and the default mode network (DMN) may aid in differentiating MDD patients from healthy individuals, suggesting potential biomarkers for diagnosis.
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Aim: Gut microbiota and its metabolite bile acids may play a significant role in the occurrence and development of major depressive disorder (MDD). Therefore, this study analyzes gut microbiota and bile acids, as well as their correlation in patients.

Methods: Thirty-one patients with MDD and 29 healthy controls (HCs) were enrolled in this study.

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Mood disorders are a kind of serious mental illness, although their molecular factors involved in the pathophysiology remain unknown. One approach to examine the molecular basis of mood disorders is co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), which is expected to further divide the set of differentially expressed genes into subgroups (i.e.

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Background: Cognitive impairment (CI) is a common symptom contributing to functional loss in major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the features of CI and its related risk factors in young and middle-aged MDD patients remain unclear.

Methods: In this case-control study, 18- to 55-year-old acute-onset MDD patients and healthy controls (HCs) were recruited from nine centers in China.

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The relationship between trace elements and neurological development is an emerging research focus. We performed a case-control study to explore (1) the differences of 13 trace elements chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), cobalt (Co), zinc (Zn), arsenic (As), selenium (Se), molybdenum (Mo), cadmium (Cd), stannum (Sn), stibium (Sb), mercury (Hg), titanium (TI), and plumbum (Pb) concentration in whole blood and urine between autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children and their typical development peers, and (2) the association between the 13 trace elements and core behaviors of ASD. Thirty ASD subjects (cases) and 30 age-sex-matched healthy subjects from Baise City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, were recruited.

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Objective: Major depression disorder (MDD) is a harmful disorder, and the pathological mechanism remains unclear. The primary pharmacotherapy regimen for MDD is selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), but fewer than 40% of patients with MDD are in remission following initial treatment. Neuroimaging biomarkers of treatment efficacy can be used to guide personalized treatment in MDD.

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Objective: For major depressive disorder (MDD), there has been a lack of neuroimaging markers of efficacy of pharmacological treatment. In this study, we aimed to explore the neuroimaging mechanisms in patients with first-episode MDD and identify markers that predict the efficacy of 5-hydroxytryptamine reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) with the use of resting-state brain imaging technology.

Methods: A total of 101 patients with first-episode MDD and 53 normal controls were finally included in this study.

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