Growing evidence points to the pivotal role of vitamin D in the pathophysiology and treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, there is a paucity of longitudinal research investigating the effects of vitamin D supplementation on the brain of MDD patients.

We conducted a double-blind randomized controlled trial in 46 MDD patients, who were randomly allocated into either VD (antidepressant medication + vitamin D supplementation) or NVD (antidepressant medication + placebos) groups. Data from diffusion tensor imaging, resting-state functional MRI, serum vitamin D concentration, and clinical symptoms were obtained at baseline and after an average of 7 months of intervention.

Both VD and NVD groups showed significant improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms but with no significant differences between the two groups. However, a greater increase in serum vitamin D concentration was found to be associated with greater improvement in depression and anxiety symptoms in VD group. More importantly, neuroimaging data demonstrated disrupted white matter integrity of right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus along with decreased functional connectivity between right frontoparietal and medial visual networks after intervention in NVD group, but no changes in VD group.

These findings suggest that vitamin D supplementation as adjunctive therapy to antidepressants may not only contribute to improvement in clinical symptoms but also help preserve brain structural and functional connectivity in MDD patients.

Although aberrant brain regional responses are reported in social anxiety disorder (SAD), little is known about resting-state functional connectivity at the macroscale network level. This study aims to identify functional network abnormalities using a multivariate data-driven method in a relatively large and homogenous sample of SAD patients, and assess their potential diagnostic value.

Forty-six SAD patients and 52 demographically-matched healthy controls (HC) were recruited to undergo clinical evaluation and resting-state functional MRI scanning. We used group independent component analysis to characterize the functional architecture of brain resting-state networks (RSNs) and investigate between-group differences in intra-/inter-network functional network connectivity (FNC). Furtherly, we explored the associations of FNC abnormalities with clinical characteristics, and assessed their ability to discriminate SAD from HC using support vector machine analyses.

SAD patients showed widespread intra-network FNC abnormalities in the default mode network, the subcortical network and the perceptual system (i.e. sensorimotor, auditory and visual networks), and large-scale inter-network FNC abnormalities among those high-order and primary RSNs. Some aberrant FNC signatures were correlated to disease severity and duration, suggesting pathophysiological relevance. Furthermore, intrinsic FNC anomalies allowed individual classification of SAD v. HC with significant accuracy, indicating potential diagnostic efficacy.

SAD patients show distinct patterns of functional synchronization abnormalities both within and across large-scale RSNs, reflecting or causing a network imbalance of bottom-up response and top-down regulation in cognitive, emotional and sensory domains. Therefore, this could offer insights into the neurofunctional substrates of SAD.

The current study examined the effects of a 16-week creative expression program on brain activity during a story creating task and resting-state functional network connectivity in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) adults.

Thirty-six MCI adults were allocated to either the creative expression program (CrExp, n = 18) or control group (CG,n = 18). Before and after intervention, all participants were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during story creating task performance and a resting state. The two-group comparison was calculated between the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal changes for each cluster to investigate the differences in fMRI activation and functional connectivity (FC) between two groups.

Task activation analyses showed an increase in the right anterior cingulate gyrus (ACG), right medial frontal gyrus (MFG), right lentiform nucleus (LN), left hippocampus (HIP), left middle occipital gyrus (MOG), and left cerebellum posterior lobe (CPL) (p < 0.05). Story creating performance improvements were associated with greater activation in the left HIP region. Resting-state functional connectivity (FC) between left HIP and certain other brain areas shown a significant interaction of creative expression group versus control group. Moreover, connectivity between the right angular gyrus (ANG), right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), right superior occipital gyrus (SOG), left ANG, and left MFG were related to improved cognitive performance (p < 0.05).

These data extend current knowledge by indicating that the creative expression program can improve cognitive activation in MCI, and these enhancements may be related to the neurocognitive network plasticity changes induced by creative expression training.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a clinically and biologically heterogeneous syndrome. Identifying discrete subtypes of illness with distinguishing neurobiological substrates and clinical features is a promising strategy for guiding personalised therapeutics.

This study aimed to identify depression subtypes with correlated patterns of functional network connectivity and clinical symptoms by clustering patients according to a weighted linear combination of both features in a relatively large, medication-naïve depression sample.

We recruited 115 medication-naïve adults with MDD and 129 matched healthy controls, and evaluated all participants with magnetic resonance imaging. We used regularised canonical correlation analysis to identify component mapping relationships between functional network connectivity and symptom profiles, and K-means clustering was used to define distinct subtypes of patients.

Two subtypes of MDD were identified: insomnia-dominated subtype 1 and anhedonia-dominated subtype 2. Subtype 1 was characterised by abnormal hyperconnectivity within the ventral attention network and sleep maintenance insomnia. Subtype 2 was characterised by abnormal hypoconnectivity in the subcortical and dorsal attention networks, and prominent anhedonia symptoms.

Our study identified two distinct subtypes of patients with specific neurobiological and clinical symptom profiles. These findings advance understanding of the biological and clinical heterogeneity of MDD, offering a pathway for defining categorical subtypes of illness via consideration of both biological and clinical features.