Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 61, Issue 8, 15 April 2007, Pages 1007-1010
Biological Psychiatry

Brief report
White-Matter Integrity Predicts Stroop Performance in Patients with Geriatric Depression

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2006.07.028Get rights and content

Background

This study tested the hypothesis that microstructural white matter abnormalities in frontostriatal-limbic tracts are associated with poor response inhibition on the Stroop task in depressed elders.

Method

Fifty-one elders with major depression participated in a 12-week escitalopram trial. Diffusion tensor imaging was used to determine fractional anisotropy (FA) in white matter regions. Executive function (response inhibition) was assessed with the Stroop task. Voxelwise correlational analysis was used to examine the relationship between Stroop performance and fractional anisotropy.

Results

Significant associations between FA and Stroop color word interference were evident in multiple frontostriatal-limbic regions, including white matter lateral to the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex and white matter in prefrontal, insular, and parahippocampal regions.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that microstructural white matter abnormalities of frontostriatal-limbic networks are associated with executive dysfunction of late-life depression. This observation provides the rationale for examination of specific frontostriatal-limbic pathways in the pathophysiology of geriatric depression.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were depressed patients aged 60 to 86 years who were recruited at a university-based geriatric psychiatry clinic. All participants signed informed consent. Participants met DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association 1994) for unipolar major depression and had a score of >18 on the 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS; Williams 1988). Exclusion criteria included the following: (1) history of psychiatric disorders (except personality disorders) before the onset of

Results

Significant positive correlations between CWI scores and FA after partialing out age were noted in multiple regions, including white matter lateral to the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, left prefrontal white matter, and white matter in insular, posterior temporal, parahippocampal, and occipital regions (Figure 1A; Table 2). To examine the specificity of the CWI correlations, we examined frontal regions in which significant relationships remained between FA and CWI, after partialing

Discussion

The main finding of this study is that reduced FA in frontostriatal-limbic regions is associated with poor response inhibition on the Stroop in depressed older patients. These findings are consistent with imaging studies that implicate the anterior cingulate and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in Stroop performance in healthy subjects (e.g., Leung et al 2000, MacDonald et al 2000, Pardo et al 1990). To our knowledge, this is the first study to use a voxelwise analysis of FA to identify

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