title: Cortical thickness, cortical and subcortical volume, and white matter integrity in patients with their first episode of major depression.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The uncertainty over the true morphological changes in brains with major depressive disorder (MDD) underlines the necessity of comprehensive studies with multimodal structural brain imaging analyses. This study aimed to evaluate the differences in cortical thickness, cortical and subcortical volume, and white matter integrity between first episode, medication-naïve MDD patients and healthy controls.
  
  
  METHODS
  Subjects with their first episode of MDD whose illness duration had not exceeded 6 months (n=20) were enrolled in this study and were compared to age-, sex-, and education level-matched healthy controls (n=22). All participants were subjected to T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We used an automated procedure of FreeSurfer and Tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) to analyze differences in cortical thickness, cortical and subcortical volume, and white matter integrity between two groups.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The patients with first episode MDD exhibited significantly reduced cortical volume in the caudal anterior cingulate gyrus (P<0.0015) compared to healthy controls. We also observed altered white matter integrity in the body of the corpus callosum (P<0.01), reduced cortical volume of the caudal middle frontal gyrus and medial orbitofrontal gyrus, and enlarged hippocampal volume in the first episode MDD patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We relied on a relatively small sample size and cortical volume reduction in several brain regions was not replicated in the analysis of cortical thickness.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Using multimodal imaging analyses on medication-naïve first episode MDD patients, we demonstrated fundamental structural alteration of brain gray and white matter, such as reduced cortical volume of the caudal ACC and white matter integrity in the body of the corpus callosum.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kyu-Man
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Han
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sunyoung
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Department of Brain and Cognitive Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Jeyoung
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jung
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Soonchunhyang University Bucheon Hospital, Bucheon, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Kyoung-Sae
authors.initials: KS
authors.lastname: Na
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Ho-Kyoung
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: Yoon
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Min-Soo
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: hambj@chol.com.
authors.forename: Byung-Joo
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Ham
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000473:pathology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000473:pathology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000473:pathology; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000473:pathology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009413:Nerve Fibers, Myelinated / Q000473:pathology*; D009929:Organ Size
keywords: Cortical thickness; Cortical volume; Depression; First episode; Medication-naïve; Subcortical volume