Orbitofrontal and Cingulate Thickness Asymmetry Associated with Depressive Symptom Dimensions

Abstract

Both clinical depression and subthreshold depressive symptoms have been associated with alterations in cortical thickness. Studies have yielded conflicting results regarding whether cortical thinning or cortical thickening best characterize the depressive state. Also unclear is whether cortical thickness differences are lateralized. This study examined the relationship between depressive symptom dimensions and cortical thickness asymmetry in cingulate and orbitofrontal regions. Fifty-four community-dwelling adults between the ages of 18 and 81 years received a 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging scan and completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D). Cortical thickness values were extracted for the rostral anterior cingulate, caudal anterior cingulate, posterior cingulate, isthmus cingulate, and orbitofrontal cortex. An asymmetry index was calculated for each region. Data were analyzed using separate general linear models for each region, in which the CES-D somatic symptoms, negative affect, and anhedonia subscale scores predicted the asymmetry indices, controlling for age and sex. Higher scores on the anhedonia subscale were associated with right-sided asymmetry in orbitofrontal thickness, whereas higher somatic symptom subscale scores predicted greater left-sided asymmetry in posterior cingulate thickness. Follow-up analyses showed the orbitofrontal effect was specific to the medial, not the lateral, orbitofrontal cortex. These results suggest asymmetries in cortical thickness are apparent at even subthreshold levels of depressive symptoms, as all but five participants were below the CES-D cutoff for clinical depression, and that the relationship varies for different symptom dimensions of depression. Understanding brain asymmetries across the range of depressive symptom severity is important for informing targeted depression treatment.

Brain network hierarchy reorganization in subthreshold depression

“…The posterior cingulate, a key part of the DMN, is a critical hub for self-referential processing, cognitive control and emotion processing, and serves as a cortex underlying multidomain cognitive function through its connections to distal cortical areas ( Li et al, 2022 ). Dotson et al found that patients with StD exhibited reduced cortical thickness in the right posterior cingulate gyrus, compared to the left posterior cingulate gyrus, and this change was associated with more severe somatic symptoms of depression ( Dotson et al, 2021 ). In the present study, we found that the gradient subdivisions of the anterior and posterior cingulate gyrus within the DMN were significantly reduced in patients with StD, and this change was correlated with the severity of depression, which might be an important part of the pathological changes in patients with StD.…”

Turning data into better mental health: Past, present, and future

“…Anticipatory anhedonia correlates with poor social outcomes in depression and can be responsive to connectivity-based transcranial magnetic stimulation treatments ( 48 , 57 ), but may be less responsive to antidepressant treatments. Imaging studies define anhedonia as low reward processing, involving altered cortical thickness ( 58 ) with asymmetry in depressive and subthreshold depressive symptoms.…”

Altered motivation of effortful decision‐making for self and others in subthreshold depression

“…This study used EEfRT to investigate neural responses of motivation for the self and an unfamiliar other underlying effortful decision-making in individuals with SD. Given that SD has been considered a developmental prodrome to MDD (Dotson et al, 2021;Wesselhoeft et al, 2013), focusing on people with SD could contribute to developing preventive interventions, as well as rule out the effect of clinical treatments (e.g., antidepressant medications) on the motivation and reward processing (He et al, 2019). We focused on neural activity changes in the choice phase between the SD and HC groups as it represents a cost-benefit trade-off between effort costs and potential rewards (Klein-Flügge et al, 2016;Scholl et al, 2015).…”