Abnormal resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity in treatment-resistant depression and treatment sensitive depression

Abstract

Background: Previous studies have commonly shown that patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and treatment-sensitive depression (TSD) demonstrate a different cerebellar activity. No study has yet explored resting-state cerebellar-cerebral functional connectivity (FC) in these two groups. Here, seed-based FC approach was employed to test the hypothesis that patients with TRD and TSD had a different cerebellar-cerebral FC. The identified FC might be used to differentiate TRD from TSD.

Methods: Twenty-three patients with TRD, 22 patients with TSD, and 19 healthy subjects (HS) matched with age, gender, and education level participated in the scans. Seed-based connectivity analyses were performed by using cerebellar seeds.

Results: Relative to HS, both patient groups showed significantly decreased cerebellar-cerebral FC with the prefrontal cortex (PFC) (superior, middle, and inferior frontal gyrus) and default mode network (DMN) [superior, middle, and inferior temporal gyrus, precuneus (PCu), and inferior parietal lobule (IPL)], and increased FC with visual recognition network (lingual gyrus, middle occipital gyrus, and fusiform) and parahippocampal gyrus. However, the TRD group exhibited a more decreased FC than the TSD group, mainly in connected regions within DMN [PCu, angular gyrus (AG) and IPL]. Further receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) analyses showed that cerebellar-DMN couplings could be applied as markers to differentiate the two subtypes with relatively high sensitivity and specificity.

Conclusions: Both patient groups demonstrate similar pattern of abnormal cerebellar-cerebral FC. Decreased FC between the cerebellum and regions within DMN might be used to separate the two patient groups.