Research progress of NLRP3 inflammasome in the pathogenesis of depression disorder / 上海交通大学学报（医学版）

Depression disorder is a kind of serious mental illness which poses high health risks and heavy financial burden to individuals and the society.Currently,there are many theories on the pathogenesis of depression disorder,such as neurotransmitter disorders,endocrine disorders,abnormal neuronal adaptability and plasticity,oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction and so on.In the lately decade,the research of immune dysfunction in the pathogenesis of depression has become a newly hot-point.This review summarizes NLRP3 inflammasome in the pathogenesis of depression disorder.

Increased Cognition Connectivity Network in Major Depression Disorder: A fMRI Study

OBJECTIVE: Evidence of the brain network involved in cognitive dysfunction has been inconsistent for major depressive disorder (MDD), especially during early stage of MDD. This study seeks to examine abnormal cognition connectivity network (CCN) in MDD within the whole brain. METHODS: Sixteen patients with MDD and 16 health controls were scanned during resting-state using 3.0 T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). All patients were first episode without any history of antidepressant treatment. Both the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) were used as individual seeds to identify CCN by the seed-target correlation analysis. Two sample t test was used to calculate between-group differences in CCN using fisher z-transformed correlation maps. RESULTS: The CCN was constructed by bilateral seed DLPFC in two groups separately. Depressed subjects exhibited significantly increased functional connectivity (FC) by left DLPFC in one cluster, overlapping middle frontal gyrus, BA7, BA43, precuneus, BA6, BA40, superior temporal gyrus, BA22, inferior parietal lobule, precentral gyrus, BA4 and cingulate gyrus in left cerebrum. Health controls did not show any cluster with significantly greater FC compared to depressed subjects in left DLPFC network. There was no significant difference of FC in right DLPFC network between depressed subjects and the health controls. CONCLUSION: There are differences in CCN during early stage of MDD, as identified by increased FCs among part of frontal gyrus, parietal cortex, cingulate cortex, and BA43, BA22, BA4 with left DLPFC. These brain areas might be involved in the underlying mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction in MDD.

Abnormal functional connectivity with mood regulating circuit in unmedicated individual with major depression: a resting-state functional magnetic resonance study / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Reports on mood regulating circuit (MRC) indicated different activities between depressed patients and healthy controls. The functional networks based on MRC have not been described in major depression disorder (MDD). Both the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and thalamus are all the key regions of MRC. This study was to investigate the two functional networks related to ACC and thalamus in MDD.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Sixteen patients with MDD on first episode which never got any medication and sixteen matched health controls were scanned by 3.0 T functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during resting-state. The pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) was used as seed region to construct the functional network by cortex section. The thalamus was used as seed region to construct the functional network by limbic section. Paired-t tests between-groups were performed for the seed-target correlations based on the individual fisher z-transformed correlation maps by SPM2.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Depressed subjects exhibited significantly great functional connectivity (FC) between pgACC and the parahippocampus gyrus in one cluster (size 923) including left parahippocampus gyrus (-21, -49, 7), left parietal lobe (-3, -46, 52) and left frontal lobe (-27, -46, 28). The one cluster (size 962) of increased FC on thalamus network overlapped the precuneus near to right parietal lobe (9, -52, 46) and right cingulate gyrus (15, -43, 43) in health controls.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Abnormal functional networks exist in earlier manifestation of MDD related to MRC by both cortex and limbic sections. The increased functional connectivity of pgACC and decreased functional connectivity of thalamus is mainly involved in bias mood processing and cognition.</p>

Decreased regional homogeneity in major depression as revealed by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Functional imaging studies indicate abnormal activities in cortico-limbic network in depression during either task or resting state. The present work was to explore the abnormal spontaneous activity shown with regional homogeneity (ReHo) in depression by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Using fMRI, the differences of regional brain activity were measured in resting state in depressed vs. healthy participants. Sixteen participants firstly diagnosed with major depressive disorder and 16 controls were scanned during resting state. A novel method based on ReHo was used to detect spontaneous hemodynamic responses across the whole brain.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>ReHo in the left thalamus, left temporal lobe, left cerebellar posterior lobe, and the bilateral occipital lobe was found to be significantly decreased in depression compared to healthy controls in resting state of depression.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Abnormal spontaneous activity exists in the left thalamus, left temporal lobe, left cerebellar posterior lobe, and the bilateral occipital lobe. And the ReHo may be a potential reference in understanding the distinct brain activity in resting state of depression.</p>

Association of schizophrenia with a promoter polymorphism in the dopamine D2 receptor gene / 中华医学遗传学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the association of -141C insert/delete polymorphism with schizophrenia in Wuhan of Hubei province.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A case-control study was conducted to analyze the polymorphism in the D(2) receptor gene promoter region with schizophrenia. A total of 120 cases of schizophrenia diagnosed according to CCMD-II R criteria and 100 normal controls were recruited in the study.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>In this sample, the allele and genotype showed statistically significant differences between patients and normal controls (P<0.05).Especially, the frequency of -141C del was 11% in patients and 18% in control(OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.30-0.96; P<0.05). This allele was less common in schizophrenia than in normal controls (P<0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The -141C del polymorphism is associated with schizophrenia.The polymorphism may modify the association with other factors. Possibly -141C del in the DRD(2) promoter region is a strong candidate for a protective factor for this trait.</p>