Ventricular volume, white matter alterations and outcome of major depression and their relationship to endocrine parameters - A pilot study.
OBJECTIVES
Brain morphology and its relation to endocrine parameters were examined, in order to determine the link of these parameters to treatment outcome to psychopharmacological treatment in depressed patients.


METHODS
We examined the potentially predictive value of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) parameters related to mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) function on the treatment outcome of depression. 16 inpatients with a major depressive episode (MDE) were studied at baseline and 14 of them approximately six weeks later. Physiological biomarkers and 3-T-structural MRI based volume measures, using FreeSurfer 6.0 software, were determined.


RESULTS
Non-responders (<50% reduction of HAMD-21; n = 6) had a significantly smaller volume of the right anterior cingulate cortex, a significantly larger ventricle to brain ratio (VBR) and third ventricle volume, and smaller volumes of the central and central-anterior corpus callosum (CC) in comparison to responders (n = 7; all p ≤ 0.05). Correlational analysis (Spearman) demonstrated that larger ventricle volume was correlated to a worse treatment outcome, higher body mass index (BMI) and smaller CC segment volume, whereas the total CC volume was negatively correlated to the saliva aldosterone/cortisol concentration ratio (AC-ratio).


CONCLUSION
Large ventricular volume may be a predictive marker for worse treatment response to standard antidepressant treatment, potentially via compression of white matter structures. A mediating role of the previously identified markers BMI and the AC-ratio, is suggested.
['Murck|Harald|H|0000-0003-4827-1945', 'Luerweg|Benjamin|B|', 'Hahn|Johannes|J|', 'Braunisch|Matthias|M|', 'Jezova|Daniela|D|', 'Zavorotnyy|Maxim|M|0000-0001-5215-2055', 'Konrad|Carsten|C|', 'Jansen|Andreas|A|', 'Kircher|Tilo|T|']
D003337:Corpus Callosum D003863:Depression D003865:Depressive Disorder, Major D006801:Humans D010865:Pilot Projects D066127:White Matter
ventricular volume Depression corpus callosum brain imaging choroid plexus