fMRI Shows Earlier Depression Can Lead to Hyperconnected Brain Networks in Young Adults

Depression may be better predicted and understood now that researchers have discovered through neuroimaging that young adults who had previously suffered from depression have hyper-connected emotional and cognitive networks in the brain.

University of Illinois at Chicago (USA) researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study the brain connectivity of young adults ages 18 to 23 while they were in a resting state. Thirty unmedicated young adults who had earlier experienced depression and 23 healthy control subjects were used in the study, which was published August 27, 2014, online in the journal PLOS ONE.

“We wanted to see if the individuals who have had depression during their adolescence were different from their healthy peers,” said Rachel Jacobs, research assistant professor in psychiatry at UIC’s Institute for Juvenile Research, the lead author of the study.

The researchers found many brain areas that are “hyper-connected—or talking to each other a little too much—among those who have a history of depression,” Dr. Jacobs said. These hyper-connected brain networks were associated with rumination, with individuals thinking about a problem over and over without actively trying to come up with a solution.

“Rumination is not a very healthy way of processing emotion,” said Scott Langenecker, associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at UIC and corresponding author of the study. “Rumination is a risk factor for depression and for reoccurrence of depression if you’ve had it in the past.”

The investigators also examined at cognitive control (the ability to engage and disengage in thought processes or behaviors), which is a predictor of response to treatment and also relapse of illness. “Cognitive control and rumination, as you might expect, are related to each other. As rumination goes up, cognitive control goes down,” said Dr. Langenecker.

The researchers will continue to track these young adults over time to see whether or not these hyperconnectivities predict who will or will not have a recurrence of illness. Psychosocial and medication treatments for depression can be helpful, according to Dr. Jacobs, but within two years of recovery 50% of those teenagers will relapse.

The move towards adulthood, a time when brain networks are almost mature, may be a critical window for interventions. “If we can help youth learn how to shift out of maladaptive strategies such as rumination, this may protect them from developing chronic depression and help them stay well as adults,” Dr. Jacobs said.

“We think that depression is a developmental outcome, and it’s not a foregone conclusion that people need to become depressed. If we can provide prevention and treatment to those people that are most at risk, we might be able to prevent depression, reduce the number of depressive episodes, or reduce their severity,” said Dr. Langenecker.

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