The Neural Association Between Symptom and Cognition in Major Depressive Disorder: A Network Control Theory Study

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Computational Psychiatry
• Network Science

Background:

• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) presents complex clinical and cognitive symptoms.
• The underlying neural mechanisms linking brain network dynamics to these symptoms remain poorly understood.
• Network Control Theory (NCT) offers a novel framework to analyze brain network topology and dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate neural mechanisms of cognitive deficits in MDD using NCT.
• To assess brain network controllability in MDD patients compared to healthy controls (HC).
• To explore the relationship between brain controllability, cognitive function, and clinical symptoms in MDD.

Main Methods:

• Applied NCT, specifically average controllability (AC), to white matter connectivity data.
• Utilized Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) and T1-weighted MRI on 170 MDD patients and 137 HC.
• Performed correlation, moderation, and mediation analyses to link AC with cognitive and clinical measures.

Main Results:

• MDD patients exhibited lower AC in the left precuneus and superior parietal lobule compared to HC.
• MDD patients showed higher AC in the right precentral gyrus (preCG) and superior frontal gyrus (SFG).
• In MDD, right SFG AC negatively associated with memory and moderated the memory-anxiety relationship; right preCG AC positively associated with processing speed in HC.

Conclusions:

• Altered brain controllability is a potential neural substrate for cognitive control deficits in MDD.
• Disrupted control in the right SFG may explain variability in memory and anxiety symptom associations in MDD.
• NCT provides a valuable approach for understanding brain network dysfunction in psychiatric disorders.