title: The Danish PET/depression project: performance on Stroop's test linked to white matter lesions in the brain.
abstract: The Stroop test (ST) assesses the integrity of prefrontal and cingulate functioning. Patients with major depression perform poorly on the ST, pointing to disturbed function in these areas. We therefore used positron emission tomography to study 41 in-patients with major depression and 46 age- and gender-matched controls during neuropsychological activation with the ST. Magnetic resonance imaging was used for coregistration and for description of the localization of white matter lesions (WML). The cerebral blood flow (CBF) changes during ST were mapped for each of the two study groups, and inter-group differences were calculated on a voxel-by-voxel basis. The patients were followed for 3 to 5 years to ensure diagnostic stability. The control group activated anterior cingulate regions, prefrontal cortices, insula, thalamus and cerebellum. Despite the patients' slower performance with more errors, no significant differences were found comparing the activations in the two groups. The performance was, however, correlated to the number of WML in frontal lobes, insula and adjacent to the basal ganglia, whereas WML in other locations was not related to performance. We thus partly explain the poorer performance by increased frequency of WML in frontostriatal pathways in the depressed patients, impairing neurotransmission.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Basic Psychiatric Research, Department of Biological Psychiatry, Psychiatric Hospital, Aarhus University Hospitals, DK-8240 Risskov, Denmark. videbech@dadlnet.dk
authors.forename: Poul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Videbech
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ravnkilde
authors.forename: Lise
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gammelgaard
authors.forename: Annette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Egander
authors.forename: Karin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Clemmensen
authors.forename: Niels Anton
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gjedde
authors.forename: Raben
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rosenberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002531:Cerebellum / Q000503:physiopathology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D003118:Color Perception; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000503:physiopathology; D003711:Demyelinating Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000503:physiopathology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D012016:Reference Values; D012039:Regional Blood Flow / Q000502:physiology; D012660:Semantics; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000502:physiology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000503:physiopathology; D014055:Tomography, Emission-Computed