Topological properties of brain functional networks in adolescents with major depressive disorder / 中华神经医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the topological properties of whole-brain functional networks in first-episode drug-na?ve adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD).Methods:Seventy-six first-episode drug-na?ve adolescents with MDD admitted to Department of Neurology, Xiangyang No.1 Hospital Affilated to Hubei University of Medicince from January 2022 to January 2023 were selected as study subjects; 66 gender- and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited via advertisement. All subjects underwent resting-state functional MRI. The whole-brain functional networks were constructed for each subject; and then, the global topological metrics (global efficiency, local efficiency, clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, normalized clustering coefficient, normalized characteristic path length, and small-worldness properties) and local topological metrics (nodal degree centrality, nodal efficiency and nodal betweenness centrality) of the functional brain networks were analyzed between the two groups using graph-theory methods. Network-based statistics were used to examine between-group differences in functional connectivity strength of whole brain networks. Results:Small-worldness properties were demonstrated in both MDD group and HC group. MDD patients showed significantly higher global efficiency (0.129[0.124, 0.132] vs. 0.131[0.128, 0.133]), significantly lower clustering coefficient and characteristic path length (0.143[0.139, 0.146] vs. 0.139[0.135, 0.144]; 0.457[0.446, 0.734] vs. 0.451[0.440, 0.463]), and significantly increased nodal centralities in the right inferior parietal lobule, bilateral caudate nucleus and bilateral thalamus of brain functional networks compared with HCs ( P<0.05, FDR-corrected). Compared with HCs, MDD patients exhibited obviously lower functional connectivity strength in the orbitofrontal-temporal and anterior cingulate-limbic-temporal circuits. Conclusion:Abnormal alterations of topological properties of the brain functional networks are found in adolescents with MDD, which may be the underlying neuropathologic basis for MDD.