TY - JOUR T1 - Baseline brain perfusion and brain structure in patients with major depression: a multimodal magnetic resonance imaging study JF - Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience JO - J Psychiatry Neurosci SP - 412 LP - 421 DO - 10.1503/jpn.140246 VL - 40 IS - 6 AU - Nenad Vasic AU - Nadine D. Wolf AU - Georg Grön AU - Zrinka Sosic-Vasic AU - Bernhard J. Connemann AU - Fabio Sambataro AU - Anna von Strombeck AU - Dirk Lang AU - Stefanie Otte AU - Manuela Dudek AU - Robert C. Wolf Y1 - 2015/11/01 UR - http://jpn.ca/content/40/6/412.abstract N2 - Background: Abnormal regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and grey matter volume have been frequently reported in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it is unclear to what extent structural and functional change co-occurs in patients with MDD and whether markers of neural activity, such as rCBF, can be predicted by structural change.Methods: Using MRI, we investigated resting-state rCBF and brain structure in patients with MDD and healthy controls between July 2008 and January 2013. We acquired perfusion images obtained with continuous arterial spin labelling, used voxel-based morphometry to assess grey matter volume and integrated biological parametric mapping analyses to investigate the impact of brain atrophy on rCBF.Results: We included 43 patients and 29 controls in our study. Frontotemporal grey matter volume was reduced in patients compared with controls. In patients, rCBF was reduced in the anterior cingulate and bilateral parahippocampal areas and increased in frontoparietal and striatal regions. These abnormalities were confirmed by analyses with brain volume as a covariate. In patients with MDD there were significant negative correlations between the extent of depressive symptoms and bilateral parahippocampal rCBF. We found a positive correlation between depressive symptoms and rCBF for right middle frontal cortical blood flow.Limitations: Medication use in patients has to be considered as a limitation of our study.Conclusion: Our data suggest that while changes of cerebral blood flow and brain volume co-occur in patients with MDD, structural change is not sufficient to explain altered neural activity in patients at rest. Abnormal brain structure and function in patients with MDD appear to reflect distinct levels of neuropathology. ER -