Background And Objective: Many surveys of neural integrity of the cerebral white matter with psychiatric diseases on diffusion tensor imaging have recently been performed, but these mainly utilize fractional anisotropy (FA) and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values, and the results were inconsistent and not fully applied clinically. In this study, we investigated the possibility of differentiating between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and elderly major depressive disorder (MDD) patients in whom early-stage symptoms are difficult to diagnose, by visually evaluating cerebral nerve fascicles utilizing diffusion tensor tractography. We also measured and evaluated FA and ADC values at the same time.

Subjects And Methods: The subjects included 13 AD patients (age: 69.5 ± 5.1 years), 19 MDD patients (65.8 ± 5.7 years), and 22 healthy control (HC) subjects (67.4 ± 4.8 years). Images were acquired using a 1.5T magnetic resonance imaging device and analyzed by diffusion tensor tractography analysis software.

Results: Depiction of the anterior thalamic radiation (ATR) tended to be poor in AD patients unlike in MDD patients and HC subjects. The FA values in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and fornix (FX) in AD patients were significantly different from those in MDD patients and HC subjects. The ADC values in the bilateral ATR and left superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi, left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and FX in AD patients were significantly different from those in MDD patients and HC subjects.

Conclusion: Visual evaluation of the ATR in combination with the FA values of the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and FX and ADC values of the bilateral ATR, left superior and inferior longitudinal fasciculi, left inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, and FX is useful for differentiating between AD and MDD patients, which further suggests that it may become a useful auxiliary diagnostic tool.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3622397PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/IJGM.S42953DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

mdd patients
24
diffusion tensor
16
adc values
16
left superior
16
tensor tractography
12
patients mdd
12
patients
11
visual evaluation
8
anterior thalamic
8
thalamic radiation
8

Similar Publications

Correlation between polygenic risk scores of depression and cortical morphology networks.

J Psychiatry Neurosci

January 2025

From the Department of Psychiatry, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, China (Gong, Wang, Nie, Ma, Zhou, Deng, Xie, Lyu, Chen, Kang, Liu); the Taikang Center for Life and Medical Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, China (Liu)

Background: Cortical morphometry is an intermediate phenotype that is closely related to the genetics and onset of major depressive disorder (MDD), and cortical morphometric networks are considered more relevant to disease mechanisms than brain regions. We sought to investigate changes in cortical morphometric networks in MDD and their relationship with genetic risk in healthy controls.

Methods: We recruited healthy controls and patients with MDD of Han Chinese descent.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Patients with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) frequently manifest comorbid neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) with depression and anxiety being most prevalent. Previously we identified shared genetic risk loci between AD and major depressive disorder (MDD). In another study, we constructed a polygenic risk score (PRS) based on MDD-GWAS data and demonstrated its performance in predicting depression onset in LOAD patients.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Apathy and mood symptoms are increasingly recognised as clinical important aspects of prodromal dementia; both are associated with increased risk of dementia even in cognitively normal people. The clinical overlap between apathy and low mood poses a challenge in distinguishing between the two conditions. It is crucial to differentiate between depression and apathy, along with any underlying syndromes, to facilitate the development of targeted treatments.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Although there is clear evidence that therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) has beneficial effects for patients treated with tricyclic antidepressants, it is generally not recommended for second-generation antidepressants (SGA). However, it has been suggested that methodological shortcomings might influence the results in TDM studies with SGA.

Aim: A qualitative assessment of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that specifically investigated drug concentration-effect relationships of SGA in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) to analyze the potential benefit of TDM during treatment with these agents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Individuals exposed to wildfires can develop mental health issues, but supportive text interventions may help mitigate these effects over time.
  • The study focused on evaluating a text message support service (Text4Hope) over three months in Alberta and Nova Scotia after the 2023 wildfires, involving participants who completed surveys to assess their mental health before and after the intervention.
  • Results indicated significant improvements in wellbeing and reductions in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and PTSD, suggesting the effectiveness of text message support in promoting mental health resilience after disasters.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!