Sex differences of gray matter morphology in cortico-limbic-striatal neural system in major depressive disorder

Abstract

Sex differences are observed in both epidemiological and clinical aspects of major depressive disorder (MDD). The cortico-limbic-striatal neural system, including the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and striatum, have shown sexually dimorphic morphological features and have been implicated in the dysfunctional regulation of mood and emotion in MDD. In this study, we utilized a whole-brain, voxel-based approach to examine sex differences in the regional distribution of gray matter (GM) morphological abnormalities in medication-naïve participants with MDD. Participants included 29 medication-naïve individuals with MDD (16 females and 13 males) and 33 healthy controls (HC) (17 females and 16 males). Gray matter morphology of the cortico-limbic-striatal neural system was examined using voxel-based morphometry analyses of high-resolution structural magnetic resonance imaging scans. The main effect of diagnosis and interaction effect of diagnosis by sex on GM morphology were statistically significant (p<0.05, corrected) in the left ventral prefrontal cortex, right amygdala, right hippocampus and bilateral caudate when comparing the MDD and HC groups. Posthoc analyses showed that females with MDD had significant GM decreases in limbic regions (p<0.05, corrected), compared to female HC; while males with MDD demonstrated significant GM reduction in striatal regions, (p<0.05, corrected), compared to HC males. The observed sex-related patterns of abnormalities within the cortico-limbic-strial neural system, such as predominant prefrontal-limbic abnormalities in MDD females vs. predominant prefrontal-striatal abnormalities in MDD males, suggest differences in neural circuitry that may mediate sex differences in the clinical presentation of MDD and potential targets for sex-differentiated treatment of the disorder.

Elevated Hippocampal Cholinergic Neurostimulating Peptide precursor protein (HCNP-pp) mRNA in the amygdala in major depression

“…We previously found differential gene expression in the amygdala of men and women with MDD compared to controls, although with notable sex differences (Guilloux et al, 2012; Sibille et al, 2009). This is in accordance with neuroimaging studies showing reduced volume or grey matter density of the amygdala in female MDD patients compared to control subjects, with no change in male MDD (Hastings et al, 2004; Kong et al, 2013). …”

Extraversion mediates the relationship between structural variations in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and social well-being

“…Effects were considered to be significant when the volume of a cluster was greater than the minimum cluster size on whole brain GMV (determined using the Monte Carlo simulation; 1032 mm 3 ), in which case the probability of a type I error was less than 0.01. Generally, AlphaSim has been widely used in previous VBM studies (DeYoung et al, 2010;Fink et al, 2013;Kong et al, 2013;Leung et al, 2013;W. Li et al, 2014;Schwartz et al, 2010).…”

Brain structure links trait creativity to openness to experience

“…Finally, the results were displayed using FSLviewer (http://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslview/). Generally, AlphaSim is widely used in previous literatures about VBM data analysis (DeYoung et al, 2010;Schwartz et al, 2010;Ding et al, 2012;Zou et al, 2012;Farb et al, 2013;Kong et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2013). Although the results corrected by Monte Carlo simulation might have some limitations reported in the study of Silver et al (2011), it can provide the appropriate cluster-level threshold to achieve the desired false-positive rate.…”