Altered neurovascular coupling in depression with childhood maltreatment

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a well-established risk to major depressive disorder (MDD) worldwide. However, most previous research has predominantly examined single imaging modalities, ignoring the potential impact of aberrant couplings between cerebral perfusion and neuronal activity in MDD psychopathology. This study aims to investigate alterations of neurovascular coupling (NVC) in CM-related MDD.

A cross-sectional study recruited 59 MDD with CM, 36 MDD without CM, 23 healthy controls with CM, and 45 healthy controls without CM. For each participant, NVC was calculated using cerebral blood flow and regional homogeneity. Main and interactive effects were determined using two-way ANCOVA, and correlations between aberrant NVC and clinical measurements were explored via post-hoc partial correlation analyses. Furthermore, support vector machine was applied to assess the diagnostic value of NVC abnormalities in pairwise classifications.

NVC analyses identified significant main effects of MDD in the visual, temporal, sensorimotor, and reward-related areas, alongside notable main effects of CM in sensorimotor areas. In the sensory-motor circuit, including the fusiform area, lateral prefrontal cortex, precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, and supramarginal gyrus/angular gyrus, MDD × CM interactive effects were observed. These aberrant NVCs correlated with the severity of CM or depression, particularly with physical neglect and cognitive disorder. Importantly, these aberrant NVCs facilitated effective pairwise classifications of CM-related MDD.

These results underscored the vulnerability of sensory-motor circuit NVC to CM in MDD patients, shedding insights into the psychopathology of MDD and its potential classification implications.