Effects of childhood maltreatment and major depressive disorder on functional connectivity in hippocampal subregions

• Published in: Brain imaging and behavior Vol. 18; no. 3; pp. 598 - 611
• Main Authors: Nie, Huiqin, Yu, Tong, Zou, Yurong, Li, Yuhong, Chen, Juran, Xia, Jinrou, Luo, Qianyi, Peng, Hongjun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-06-2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adult; Adult Survivors of Child Abuse; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain Mapping - methods; Child abuse & neglect; Child Abuse - psychology; Children; Depressive Disorder, Major - diagnostic imaging; Depressive Disorder, Major - physiopathology; Female; Frontal gyrus; Hippocampus; Hippocampus - diagnostic imaging; Hippocampus - physiopathology; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Mental depression; Middle Aged; Neural networks; Neural Pathways - diagnostic imaging; Neural Pathways - physiopathology; Neurobiology; Neuropsychology; Neuroradiology; Neurosciences; Phenotypes; Psychiatry; Putamen; Superior temporal gyrus; Supplementary motor area; Temporal gyrus; Young Adult; Childhood maltreatment; Dynamic functional connectivity; Static functional connectivity; Major depressive disorder; Hippocampus
• ISSN: 1931-7565; 1931-7557; 1931-7565
• DOI: 10.1007/s11682-024-00859-w

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with childhood maltreatment is a prevalent clinical phenotype. Prior studies have observed abnormal hippocampal activity in MDD patients, considering the hippocampus as a single nucleus. However, there is limited research investigating the static and dynamic changes in hippocampal subregion functional connectivity (FC) in MDD patients with childhood maltreatment. Therefore, we employed static and dynamic FC analyses using hippocampal subregions, including the anterior hippocampus and posterior hippocampus, as seed regions to investigate the neurobiological alterations associated with MDD resulting from childhood maltreatment. This study involved four groups: MDD with (
n
 = 48) and without childhood maltreatment (
n
 = 30), as well as healthy controls with (
n
 = 57) and without (
n
 = 46) childhood maltreatment. Compared to MDD patients without childhood maltreatment, those with childhood maltreatment exhibit altered FC between the hippocampal subregion and multiple brain regions, including the anterior cingulate gyrus, superior frontal gyrus, putamen, calcarine gyrus, superior temporal gyrus, angular gyrus, and supplementary motor area. Additionally, dynamic FC between the right medial-2 hippocampal head and the right calcarine gyrus shows a positive correlation with childhood maltreatment across all its subtypes. Moreover, dFC between the right hippocampal tail and the left angular gyrus moderates the relationship between childhood maltreatment and the depression severity. Our findings of distinct FC patterns within hippocampal subregions provide new clues for understanding the neurobiological basis of MDD with childhood maltreatment.