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Updated: Jan 11, 2026
MRI-guided dmPFC-rTMS as a Treatment for Treatment-resistant Major Depressive Disorder
Published on: August 11, 2015
Static and dynamic functional connectivity signatures of response to cognitive behavioural therapy in unmedicated
Filippo Queirazza1, Jonathan Cavanagh2
1School of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 0XH, UK; School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8AD, UK.
Background:
Depression has been increasingly characterised as a disorder of functional brain connectivity. Over the last two decades aberrant functional connectivity of large-scale resting-state brain networks implicated in inhibitory cognitive control, affective regulation, and self-referential thought, has been compellingly linked to depression. Capitalising on network-based accounts of depression, subsequent research endeavours have aimed at identifying functional connectomic signatures of treatment response in depression. However, to date, there has been little research on the connectomic features of psychotherapy response.
Methods:
We investigated static and dynamic functional connectivity signatures of response to CBT in forty-six unmedicated patients with depression who underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging before and two months after completion of an Internet-delivered CBT intervention.
Results:
At baseline, responders dwelled in a brain state characterised by greater functional connectivity between cognitive control and affective networks. Conversely, functional connectivity between cognitive control and default mode networks was comparatively weaker in the responders group. Notably, baseline functional connectivity significantly classified CBT response at the individual level with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.85.
Conclusion:
These results are in accordance with current network-based accounts of CBT neural mechanisms, positing that greater cognitive control over negative emotion processing enables CBT response. This study extends previous findings on the network-based functional connectomic signatures of CBT response in depression.
