Amygdala and regional volumes in treatment-resistant versus nontreatment-resistant depression patients.
Depress Anxiety. 2017-08-09; 34(11): 1065-1071
DOI: 10.1002/da.22675
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BACKGROUND: Although treatment-resistant and nontreatment-resistant depressed
patients show structural brain anomalies relative to healthy controls, the
difference in regional volumetry between these two groups remains undocumented.
METHODS: A whole-brain voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis of regional volumes
was performed in 125 participants’ magnetic resonance images obtained on a 1.5
Tesla scanner; 41 had treatment-resistant depression (TRD), 40
nontreatment-resistant depression (non-TRD), and 44 were healthy controls. The
groups were comparable for age and gender. Bipolar/unipolar features as well as
pharmacological treatment classes were taken into account as covariates.
RESULTS: TRD patients had higher gray matter (GM) volume in the left and right
amygdala than non-TRD patients. No difference was found between the TRD bipolar
and the TRD unipolar patients, or between the non-TRD bipolar and non-TRD
unipolar patients. An exploratory analysis showed that lithium-treated patients
in both groups had higher GM volume in the superior and middle frontal gyri in
both hemispheres.
CONCLUSIONS: Higher GM volume in amygdala detected in TRD patients might be seen
in perspective with vulnerability to chronicity, revealed by medication
resistance.
© 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.