[Depression and modern neuroimaging]

Modern neuroimaging like PET, SPECT, MR-Volumetry, functional MRI and MR-Spectroscopy has effectively advanced research on aetiology, pathogenesis and therapy options of depressive disorders. This review highlights the status of current research on this topic. Consistent with morphological findings, which report alterations in regions of emotionally relevant networks of the brain in depressive disorders, findings of functional studies point to changes in the basal ganglia, the frontal cortex and the limbic system involving the hippocampus and the amygdala. During processing of emotional cues depressive patients show different activation patterns in the regions of the frontal lobe and the amygdala. In our study of a subgroup we were also able to show deficits in processing cues independently from the emotional quality of the stimulus - especially in posterior-parietal and prefrontal areas. In healthy subjects affective modulation correlates with an ordered interaction of ventral-limbic and dorsal-neocortical regions of the brain, which become unbalanced in depressive disorders. In the future, modern neuroimaging will open promising fields of research, which aim at the identification of valid neurofunctional subgroups of the heterogeneous affective disorders and the development of more adjusted and efficient therapy strategies.