Male elderly subthreshold depression patients have smaller volume of medial part of prefrontal cortex and precentral gyrus compared with age-matched normal subjects: a voxel-based morphometry.
BACKGROUND
The brain morphological changes in subthreshold depression (sD) have not been clarified. We examined the structural difference in regional gray matter volume between community-dwelling elderly subjects with sD and age-matched nondepressed normal subjects by voxel-based morphometry (VBM) based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).


METHODS
Thirty-four community-dwelling elderly subjects with sD and 109 age-matched nondepressed normal subjects were studied by MRI. We defined subjects with sD as those who showed a Geriatric Depression Scale score of 15 or higher and a Mini Mental State Examination score of 22 or higher, and do not fulfill the criteria of major depressive disorder (MDD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders IV. We collected brain magnetic resonance images of 34 subjects with sD and 109 age-matched normal subjects, and analyzed the difference in regional gray matter volume between these two groups by VBM.


RESULTS
Male subjects with sD had significantly smaller volumes of the medial part of the bilateral frontal lobes and the right precentral gyrus than normal male subjects.


CONCLUSIONS
We have not clarified the discrepancy in the results of gender difference.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study revealed that even community-dwelling elderly male subjects with sD show bilateral prefrontal gray matter volume reduction, which was reported to be observed in elderly patients with MDD, although there is no significant volume reduction in the hippocampus, which was also reported to be observed in MDD. Our study may contribute to clarifying the mechanism underlying brain pathological changes in sD.
Taki
Yasuyuki
Y
Department of Nuclear Medicine and Radiology, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, 4-1 Seiryo-cho, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8575, Japan. ytaki@idac.tohoku.ac.jp
Kinomura
Shigeo
S
Awata
Shuichi
S
Inoue
Kentaro
K
Sato
Kazunori
K
Ito
Hiroshi
H
Goto
Ryoi
R
Uchida
Shinya
S
Tsuji
Ichiro
I
Arai
Hiroyuki
H
Kawashima
Ryuta
R
Fukuda
Hiroshi
H
D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D000886:Anthropometry; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010045:Outpatients; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000473:pathology*; D012737:Sex Factors