Lower White Matter Density at Age 14 May Signal Future Depression

Adolescents with a lower density of white matter —the nerve fibers that connect different brain regions—are at higher risk of developing depression, according to areport inAJP in Advance.Previous research has shown that adolescents with depression have reduced white matter density. This new study shows that these structural changes predate the onset of depression, suggesting they may represent a biomarker of depression vulnerability.Researchers with Europe ’s IMAGEN Consortium took brain scans of 96 14-year-olds with subthreshold depression and 336 age-matched healthy controls. The participants were categorized as having subthreshold depression if they had experienced at least three depressive symptoms, including at least one core symptom (abnormall y depressed, irritable mood, or loss of interest) in the past four weeks, without fulfilling criteria for aDSM-IVmajor depressive episode. The adolescents then had a follow-up assessment at age 16 to screen for depression and other psychiatric disorders (no brain scans were taken during follow-up).The investigators used a technique called fractional anisotropy to measure the density of nerve fibers in the brains of the adolescents. They found that on average those with subthreshold depression at age 14 had lower fiber density, particularly in two regions: the corpus callosum (the band of nerves that joins the two hemispheres of the brain) and the nerve fibers that connect the corpus callosum to the anterior cingulate cortex ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ajp in advance corpus callosum depression depression risk IMAGEN neuroimaging subthreshold depression white matter Source Type: research