Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity of Multiple Networks and Disrupted Correlation With Executive Function in Major Depressive Disorder

Yujie Liu; Yaoping Chen; Xinyu Liang; Danian Li; Yanting Zheng; Hanyue Zhang; Ying Cui; Jingxian Chen; Jiarui Liu; Shijun Qiu

doi:10.3389/fneur.2020.00272

Altered Resting-State Functional Connectivity of Multiple Networks and Disrupted Correlation With Executive Function in Major Depressive Disorder

Front Neurol. 2020 Apr 28:11:272. doi: 10.3389/fneur.2020.00272. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yujie Liu^{1

2}, Yaoping Chen¹, Xinyu Liang¹, Danian Li³, Yanting Zheng^{1

2}, Hanyue Zhang¹, Ying Cui⁴, Jingxian Chen⁵, Jiarui Liu⁶, Shijun Qiu²

Affiliations

¹ First Clinical Medical College, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
² Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
³ Cerebropathy Center, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
⁴ Cerebropathy Center, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Shunde Hospital of Southern Medical University, Shunde, China.
⁶ Department of Radiology, Zhuhai Hospital of Southern Medical University, Zhuhai, China.

Abstract

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common and costly psychiatric disorders. In addition to significant changes in mood, MDD patients face an increased risk of developing cognitive dysfunction. It is important to gain an improved understanding of cognitive impairments and find a biomarker for cognitive impairment diagnosis in MDD. Methods: One hundred MDD patients and 100 normal controls (NCs) completed resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) scan, in which 34 MDD patients and 34 NCs had scores in multiple cognitive domains (executive function, verbal fluency, and processing speed). Twenty-seven regions of interest from the default mode network (DMN), central executive network (CEN), salience network (SN), and limbic system (LS) were selected as seeds for functional connectivity (FC) analyses with the voxels in the whole brain. Finally, partial correlations were conducted for cognitive domain scores and FCs with significant differences between the MDD and NC groups. Results: Significant FC differences between groups were identified among the seeds and clusters in the DMN, CEN, LS, visual network, somatomotor network, ventral attention network, and dorsal attention network. In the MDD patients, the magnitude of the Stroop interference effect was positively correlated with the illness duration, and the illness duration was negatively correlated with the FC between the right ventral hippocampal gyrus and the left inferior frontal gyrus. However, the correlation between the Stroop interference effect and the FC of the right anterior prefrontal cortex with the left cerebellum_4_5 was disrupted in these patients. Conclusions: The MDD patients have altered FCs among multiple brain networks and a disrupted correlation between the FC of prefrontal cortex and executive function. The disrupted correlation could present before the symptoms develop and may be the core process in the development of executive function impairment.

Keywords: executive function; fMRI; functional connectivity; major depressive disorder; neuropsychological test; resting state.