Aberrant structural and functional alterations in postpartum depression: a combined voxel-based morphometry and...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Radiology

Background:

• Postpartum depression (PPD) is a severe psychiatric disorder with unclear pathogenesis.
• Neuroimaging studies suggest alterations in brain regions related to emotion regulation, cognition, and parenting in PPD.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate brain structural alterations and functional changes in patients with PPD.
• To explore the neural mechanisms underlying PPD.

Main Methods:

• Used 3D T1-weighted and resting-state functional MRI on 28 PPD patients and 30 healthy controls.
• Applied voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for structural analysis and seed-based functional connectivity (FC) for functional analysis.

Main Results:

• PPD patients exhibited increased gray matter volume (GMV) in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC.L), right precentral gyrus (PrCG.R), and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).
• Increased FC was observed between DLPFC.L and other brain regions, and between PrCG.R and the right median cingulate.
• GMV of DLPFC.L and FC of PrCG.R-DCG.R positively correlated with PPD symptom severity.

Conclusions:

• Structural and functional alterations in DLPFC.L and OFC are associated with cognitive and parenting deficits in PPD.
• Abnormalities in DLPFC.L and PrCG.R are linked to impaired executive function.
• Increased GMV in DLPFC.L may represent a specific pathological mechanism in PPD, potentially related to parenting stress.