from Section II - Mood Disorders
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 January 2011
Introduction
An important step in our understanding of the pathophysiology of mood disorders has been made with the advent of neuroimaging. Studies exploring structural changes in the brain associated with unipolar major depression have identified key regions that may underlie the pathogenesis, course, and prognosis of major depression. This chapter will review structural imaging findings in major depression focusing on MRI methodologies such as volumetric analysis, shape analysis, magnetization transfer, and diffusion tensor imaging. We will first examine morphological changes associated with major depression. Then we will discuss white matter changes such as signal hyperintensities and microstructural alterations identified by novel MR-based techniques. We will also explore the pathological and cognitive correlates, as well as the clinical significance of these structural findings.
Cerebral cortex
Initial studies showing neuroanatomical changes associated with major depression explored global cortical alterations, typically characterized by evidence of volume loss. An early qualitative study demonstrating cortical changes showed greater cerebral sulcal and temporal sulcal atrophy in addition to larger ventricles (Rabins et al., 1991). Global gray matter volume losses have been associated with major depression and correlated with clinical variables, such as illness duration (Lampe et al.., 2003).
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.