The Danish PET/depression project: cognitive function and regional cerebral blood flow.
OBJECTIVE
To clarify the relationship between cognitive functions and regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in a large group of depressed patients compared with healthy controls.


METHODS
A set of principal components was extracted from scores of a battery of neuropsychological tests of 40 patients suffering from major depression and 49 healthy controls. The components were correlated by multiple linear regression analyses to selected regions of interest in the brain obtained from positron emission tomography images.


RESULTS
In contrast to findings in the healthy controls, cognitive functions in the depressed patients correlated significantly with rCBF in specified regions of interest in only a few instances.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study indicates that disturbed cognitive functions in depression do not relate to specific areas of the brain in the same way as normal cognitive functioning, suggesting that the abnormalities of brain function in major depression may be qualitative, rather than quantitative, in nature.
Ravnkilde
B
B
Department of Biological Psychiatry, Institute for Basic Psychiatric Research, Psychiatric Hospital in Aarhus, Aarhus University Hospitals, Risskov. bje@psykiatri.aaa.dk
Videbech
P
P
Clemmensen
K
K
Egander
A
A
Rasmussen
N A
NA
Gjedde
A
A
Rosenberg
R
R
Gade
A
A
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology; D003718:Denmark; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000473:pathology / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012039:Regional Blood Flow / Q000502:physiology; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed