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. 2025 Jul 3;24(1):41.
doi: 10.1186/s12991-025-00581-x.

Abnormal static and dynamic regional homogeneity in adolescent major depressive disorder with somatic symptoms: a resting-state fMRI study

Siye Yu #  1 , Chang Shu #  1 , Gaohua Wang  2   3
Affiliations

Abnormal static and dynamic regional homogeneity in adolescent major depressive disorder with somatic symptoms: a resting-state fMRI study

Siye Yu et al. Ann Gen Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: Somatic symptoms are common in adolescent major depressive disorder (MDD) and related to severity of depression and clinical outcomes. However, the neurological mechanism of somatic symptoms in adolescent MDD remains unknown. In this study, we aimed to explore the functional alterations of intrinsic brain local connectivity in adolescent MDD with somatic symptoms based on static and dynamic reginal homogeneity (ReHo).

Methods: This study included 50 first-episode, drug naïve adolescent MDD patients and 34 healthy controls (HCs) matched for age, gender and years of education. Patients were categorized into somatic depression (SD) group (n = 21) and non-somatic depression (NSD) group (n = 29) based on the presence of somatic symptoms or not. All participants underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), and static and dynamic ReHo were calculated and compared among SD, NSD and HC groups. Correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the relationship between altered ReHo values and severity of clinical symptoms.

Results: Adolescent MDD patients with somatic symptoms showed higher total scores of the 17-items Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD-17). Moreover, increased static ReHo in left inferior parietal gyrus (IPG), left superior parietal gyrus (SPG) and left triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus (IFGtriang) were observed in SD group compared with NSD group. The SD group also exhibited decreased dynamic ReHo in bilateral IPG, bilateral SPG, and left IFGtriang. Moreover, there were significant correlations between static and dynamic ReHo values in these abnormal brain regions and the weight factor scores of HAMD-17.

Conclusions: Our findings suggested that there may be abnormal patterns of functional local connectivity in SPG, IPG and IFGtriang in adolescent MDD patients with somatic symptoms, enriching the knowledge of neurological mechanism concerning somatic symptoms in adolescent MDD.

Keywords: Dynamic; Major depressive disorder; Regional homogeneity; Somatic symptoms.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University before the research was carried out. Our study was conducted under the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. As a cross-sectional and exploratory study, the current study was not registered in Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, and clinical trial number of this study was not applicable. Each participant obtained informed consent from their legal guardians before approving to participate in the study. Participants and their legal guardians received a full description of this study and voluntarily signed written informed consent. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Brain regions with different static ReHo between SD and NSD groups (A), between SD and HC groups (B), and between NSD and HC groups (C) based on post hoc test (GRF correction, voxel P < 0.001, cluster P < 0.05). ReHo, regional homogeneity; SD, somatic depression; NSD, non-somatic depression; HC, healthy control; GRF, Gaussian random field
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Brain regions with different dynamic ReHo between SD and NSD groups (A), between SD and HC groups (B), and between NSD and HC groups (C) based on post hoc tests (GRF correction, voxel P < 0.001, cluster P < 0.05). ReHo, regional homogeneity; SD, somatic depression; NSD, non-somatic depression; HC, healthy control; GRF, Gaussian random field
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Heatmap of correlation analysis between sReHo and dReHo of different brain regions and the severity of depressive symptoms. sReHo, static regional homogeneity; dReHo, dynamic regional homogeneity; IPG, inferior parietal gyrus; SPG, superior parietal gyrus; IFGtriang, triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus; HAMD-17, total scores of 17-items Hamilton Depression Scale; Anxiety, anxiety factor scores of HAMD-17; Weight, weight factor scores of HAMD-17; Cognitive disturbance, cognitive disturbance factor scores of HAMD-17; Retardation, retardation factor scores of HAMD-17; Sleep disturbance, sleep disturbance factor scores of HAMD-17
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Scatterplots of correlation analysis between sReHo/dReHo of the abnormal brain regions and the severity of depressive symptoms. sReHo, static regional homogeneity; dReHo, dynamic regional homogeneity; IPG, inferior parietal gyrus; SPG, superior parietal gyrus; IFGtriang, triangular part of inferior frontal gyrus; HAMD-17, total scores of 17-items Hamilton Depression Scale; Weight, weight factor scores of HAMD-17
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