New Study Suggests a
Potential Biomarker in the Brain
December
23, 2015--A network of interacting brain regions known as the default mode
network (DMN) was found to have stronger connections in adults and children
with a high risk of depression compared to those with a low risk.
These
findings suggest that increased DMN connectivity is a potential precursor, or
biomarker, indicating a risk of developing major depressive disorder (MDD).
The study
was published online today in Neuropsychopharmacology.
Researchers
at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and New York State Psychiatric
Institute (NYSPI) used magnetic resonance imaging to compare people at high
risk for depression to those at low risk based on their family history of
depression.
This
approach allowed researchers to look for differences in the brain that are not
a consequence of the depression itself, since the disorder had not yet
manifested in most of the individuals.
The DMN
brain system is more active when people are focused on internal thinking, such
as ruminative thoughts.
Increased
DMN connections have previously been seen in individuals with MDD, may relate
to ruminative symptoms, and typically normalize with antidepressant treatment.
The study reveals that the process of increasing DMN connections may occur
before the onset of depression.
“These
findings suggest that looking at activity in the DMN may offer an objective
method of identifying people who are at risk of developing major depression,”
said lead author Myrna Weissman, PhD, the Diane Goldman Kemper Family Professor
of Epidemiology (in Psychiatry) at CUMC and Chief of the Division of
Epidemiology at NYSPI.
“This may
represent a another way toward advancing prevention and early intervention for
this major public health issue.”
“If this
insight proves correct,” said Jonathan Posner, MD, lead author and Associate
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at CUMC, ”behavioral interventions that
improve the functioning of the DMN, such as meditation and mindfulness, could
be used to address a brain-based problem (increased DMN connections), before it
leads to a depressive illness.”
The
article, entitled “Increased Default Mode Network Connectivity in Individuals
at High Familial Risk for Depression,” was published online as an accepted
article preview in Neuropsychopharmacology; doi:
10.1038/npp.2015.342. The authors are Jonathan Posner, Jiook Cha, Zhishun Wang,
Ardesheer Talati, Virginia Warner, Andrew Gerber and Myrna Weissman at the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; New
York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA; and Bradley S Peterson at
the Institute for the Developing Mind, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the
Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA,
USA.
This study was supported in part by NIMH grants R01-MH036197 and K23-MH091249 and the Sackler Institute for Psychobiology
Dr Posner
has received research support from Shire Pharmaceuticals. The remaining authors
have no competing interests to report.
