Ketamine plus propofol-electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) transiently improves the antidepressant effects and the associated brain functional alterations in patients with propofol-ECT-resistant depression.

New methods for using ketamine in patients with propofol-electroconvulsive therapy-resistant depression (ECT-RD) are needed in the clinic. This study aimed to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of ketamine plus ECT in ECT-RD patients, along with the treatment-induced brain alterations. A total of 28 ECT-RD patients were intravenously injected with ketamine six times and treated with propofol-ECT six times alternately within two weeks. The Hamilton Depression Scale was used to assess the treatment effect. Global functional connectivity density (gFCD) and functional connectivity strength (FCS) were used to evaluate functional brain alterations. As compared with the propofol-ECT treatment group, the addition of ketamine could improve the therapeutic outcomes in patients with ECT-RD. The treatment increased gFCD in the left temporal and subgenual anterior cingulated cortex. Simultaneously, the treatment decreased FCS within the default mode network. Although increased functional connectivity could be sustained for 10 days, the clinical effect was only sustained 7 days, indicating that the clinical effect and functional brain alterations were disjointed. Ketamine plus propofol-ECT can obviously improve the effects of propofol-ECT in ECT-RD patients. However, the effect is limited in 7 days, suggesting the benefit is short-term.

Differences in Carotid Plaques Between Symptomatic Patients With and Without Diabetes Mellitus.

Objective- Diabetes mellitus is associated with high-risk atherosclerotic plaques. This study aimed to compare characteristics of carotid atherosclerotic plaques in symptomatic Chinese diabetic and nondiabetic patients using vessel wall magnetic resonance imaging. Approach and Results- Patients with cerebral ischemic symptoms in the anterior circulation and carotid atherosclerotic plaque determined by ultrasound were recruited from a cross-sectional, observational, multicenter study of CARE-II (Chinese Atherosclerosis Risk Evaluation). All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging for carotid arteries. The morphological and compositional characteristics of carotid plaques were compared between diabetic and nondiabetic patients using linear (continuous variables) and logistic regression (binary variables). In a total of 584 recruited patients, 182 (31.2%) had diabetes mellitus. From the univariate analysis, diabetic patients had significantly greater mean wall area (33.7 versus 31.1 mm2; P=0.002), maximum wall thickness (3.2 versus 2.8 mm; P<0.001), and mean normalized wall index (43.8% versus 41.0%; P<0.001) and had significantly higher prevalence of calcification (51.6% versus 36.6%; P=0.001), lipid-rich necrotic core (77.5% versus 58.5%; P<0.001), and high-risk plaque (29.7% versus 19.9%; P=0.011) than nondiabetic patients. After adjusting for clinical characteristics, the differences in presence of calcification ( P=0.018) and lipid-rich necrotic core ( P=0.001) remained statistically significant. Conclusions- Symptomatic Chinese diabetic patients are more likely to have carotid plaques with calcification and lipid-rich necrotic core than nondiabetic patients, suggesting that diabetic patients may develop more severe atherosclerotic disease that should be accounted for in their clinical management.

Nonspecific Effect of Stress on Brain Gray Matter Volume in Drug-naive Female Patients with First Depressive Episode.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to observe the differences in brain gray matter volume in drug-naive female patients after the first episode of major depression with and without stressful life events (SLEs) before the onset of depression. METHODS: Forty-three drug-naive female patients voluntarily participated in the present study after the first major depressive episode. The life event scale was used to evaluate the severity of the impact of SLEs during 6 months before the onset of the major depressive episode. High-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were obtained, and the VBM and SPM8 software process were used to process and analyze the MRI. RESULTS: Compared to that in patients without SLEs, the volume of brain gray matter was lower in the bilateral temporal lobe, right occipital lobe, and right limbic lobe in the SLE group. However, the gray matter volume did not differ significantly between the two groups after the application of false discovery rate (FDR) correction. CONCLUSIONS: Although the results of the present study suggest the absence of significant differences in brain gray matter volume between female drug-naive patients after the first episode of major depression with and without SLEs after FDR correction, the study provides useful information for exploring the definitive role of stress in the onset of depression.

Pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling imaging of cerebral blood perfusion asymmetry in drug-naïve patients with first-episode major depression.

Many previous studies have reported that regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) aberrations may be one of the pathological characteristics of depression and rCBF has demonstrated a certain degree of asymmetry. However, studies investigating the cerebral blood perfusion asymmetry changes of drug-naïve patients experiencing their first episode of major depression using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) are rare. Ten drug-naïve patients experiencing their first major depression episode and 15 healthy volunteers were enrolled in the current study. A novel pCASL method was applied to whole brain MRI scans of all of the samples. The Statistics Parameter Mapping and Relative Expression Software Tool software packages were used for the pre-processing and statistical analysis of the two sets of images, and the differences in the cerebral blood perfusion at the whole brain level were compared between the two groups. Compared with the healthy control group, the cerebral perfusion of the depression patients showed an asymmetric pattern. Decreased cerebral blood perfusion regions were primarily located in the left hemisphere, specifically in the left temporal lobe, frontal lobe and cingulate cortex [P<0.05 and cluster size ≥30 with false discovery rate (FDR) correction]. Simultaneously, increased perfusion regions were predominantly located in the right hemisphere, specifically in the right cerebellum, thalamus, frontal lobe and anterior cingulate cortex (P<0.05 and cluster size ≥30, with FDR correction). Thus, pCASL may characterize the alterations in cerebral blood perfusion of patients with depression.

A pilot fMRI study of the effect of stressful factors on the onset of depression in female patients.

The goal of this study was to observe the differences in brain activation under negative emotional picture stimuli in drug-naïve female patients with a first major depressive episode, comparing patients with and without stressful life experiences prior to the onset of depression. Using a 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, 18 patients who experienced stressful life events (SLEs) and 15 patients who did not experience SLEs were scanned under a task-fMRI paradigm designed to distinguish between negative and neutral neural responses to visual stimuli. SPM 8.0 software was used to process the fMRI data; the significantly activated brain regions were recorded and organized in the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) standard space. Upon stimulation with negative emotional pictures, depressed patients who had experienced SLEs showed significantly increased activation of the bilateral superior temporal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus, left medial frontal gyrus, right inferior frontal gyrus, bilateral precentral gyrus, bilateral postcentral gyrus, bilateral middle frontal gyrus, right precuneus, left paracentral lobule, bilateral thalamus, bilateral hippocampus, and left cerebellum when compared with depressed patients who did not experience SLEs.The brain regions that showed increased activation in depressed patients who experienced SLEs were primarily located in the neural circuits of the emotion processing system; this result likely indicates that these patients may have an increased negative cognitive bias in the perception, experience, and memory of negative emotional events, as well as their response to those events.