Nucl Med Mol Imaging.  2009 Apr;43(2):107-111.

Alterations of Regional Cerebral Blood Flow in Major Depressive Disorder

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Radiology, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, South Korea. nm@catholic.ac.kr

Abstract

PURPOSE: The authors analyzed how the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) findings of patients with major depression differ from the normal control, and our results were compared to previous reports.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Twelve patients fulfilling DSM-IV criteria for major depression who were off all psychotropic medications for >4weeks (male: 7, female: 5, age range: 19~52 years, average age: 29.3+/-9.9 years) and 14 normal volunteers (male: 8, female: 6, age range: 19~53 years, average age: 31.4+/-9.2 years) were recruited. Images of brain perfusion SPECT were obtained using Tc-99m ECD and patterns of the rCBF were compared between patients with major depression and the healthy control subjects.
RESULTS
The patients with major depression showed increase of the r-CBF in right lingual gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, left lingual gyrus, left precuneus, and left superior temporal gyrus, and showed decrease of r-CBF in right pons, left medial frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus of left limbic lobe, cingulate gyrus of right frontal lobe, and cingulate gyrus of right limbic lobe compared to the normal control.
CONCLUSION
The Tc-99m ECD brain perfusion SPECT findings in our study did not differ from the previously reported regional cerebral blood flow pattern of patients with major depression. Especially, decreased rCBF pattern typical to major depression patients in the right pons, left medial frontal gyrus, and cingulate regions was clearly demonstrated.

Keyword

Depression; regional cerebral blood flow; brain SPECT

MeSH Terms

Brain
Cysteine
Depression
Depressive Disorder, Major
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Frontal Lobe
Gyrus Cinguli
Humans
Organotechnetium Compounds
Perfusion
Pons
Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon
Cysteine
Organotechnetium Compounds
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