Original ArticleBrain Imaging Correlates of Depressive Symptom Severity and Predictors of Symptom Improvement After Antidepressant Treatment
Section snippets
Participants
Seventeen participants (mean age ± SD = 44.06 ± 8.36 years; 12 women, 5 men) meeting DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association 1994) criteria for major depressive disorder according to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis 1 Disorders (First et al. 1995) were recruited from the general population by local newspaper advertisements. Inclusion criteria were an acute episode of major depressive disorder of the unipolar subtype and a score of at least 18 on the 17-item Hamilton Rating
Depressive Symptom Ratings
Mean baseline symptom score was in the moderate–severe range, HAM-D(0) = 20.9 ± 2.2 (SD), and was reduced by approximately 63% over the course of treatment, HAM-D(8) = 7.8 ± 3.8. The mean rate of normalized symptom change over time, B ≈ −.08, indicates that symptom severity decreased linearly by 8% per week of treatment, with considerable between-subject variability in linear coefficients of symptom change, SD(B) = .025; Figure 1. There was no significant correlation between the coefficient of
Discussion
We have shown that severity of depressive symptoms and response to antidepressant treatment are strongly and independently associated with MRI markers of brain structure and function in people with major depression.
References (46)
- et al.
Generic brain activation mapping in functional magnetic resonance imaging: A nonparametric approach
Magn Reson Imaging
(1997) - et al.
Brain metabolic changes in major depressive disorder from pre- to post-treatment with paroxetine
Psychiatry Res
(1999) - et al.
Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex
Trends Cogn Sci
(2000) - et al.
Regional brain function, emotion and disorders of emotion
Curr Opin Neurobiol
(1999) - et al.
Pretreatment platelet 5-HT concentration predicts the short-term response to paroxetine in major depressionGrupo de Trastornos Afectivos
Biol Psychiatry
(1999) - et al.
Cortical projections to the periaqueductal gray in the monkey: A retrograde and orthograde horseradish peroxidase study
Neurosci Lett
(1981) - et al.
The combined dexamethasone/CRH test as a potential surrogate marker in depression
Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry
(2005) - et al.
Improved optimization for the robust and accurate linear registration and motion correction of brain images
Neuroimage
(2002) - et al.
A global optimisation method for robust affine registration of brain images
Med Image Anal
(2001) - et al.
Regional cerebral glucose utilization in patients with a range of severities of unipolar depression
Biol Psychiatry
(2002)