Topologically state-independent and dependent functional connectivity patterns in current and remitted depression

Identification of state-independent and -dependent neural biomarkers may provide insight into the pathophysiology and effective treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD), therefore we aimed to investigate the state-independent and -dependent topological alterations of MDD.

Brain resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired from 59 patients with unmedicated first episode current MDD (cMDD), 48 patients with remitted MDD (rMDD) and 60 demographically matched healthy controls (HCs). Using graph theory, we systematically studied the topological organization of their whole-brain functional networks at the global and nodal level.

At a global level, both patient groups showed decreased normalized clustering coefficient in relative to HCs. On a nodal level, both patient groups showed decreased nodal centrality, predominantly in cortex-mood-regulation brain regions including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex. By comparison to cMDD patients, rMDD group had a higher nodal centrality in right parahippocampal gyrus.

The present study, an exploratory analysis, may require further confirmation with task-based and experimental studies.

Deficits in the topological organization of the whole brain and cortex-mood-regulation brain regions in both rMDD and cMDD represent state-independent biomarkers.