Changes of cortical-limbic pathways in male recurrent unipolar major depressive disorder during attention control dysfunction

Objective To study information transmission circumstances within the neural circuits related to the attentional controls of the male depression patients. Methods Twelve unipolar depression patients and twelve age- and education- matched healthy controls were involved in the Stroop word-color interference test to detect the variation of brain inhibitory function by Magnetoencephalography scanning. Results Compared with the healthy controls, the abnormally activities in depressed patients during in chronological order were separately as follow: decreased activation in the left postcentral gyrus(t=3.10), the right superior frontal gyrus(t=2.16), the left middle frontal gyrus (t=2.64), the left parietal lobe (t=2.89), the right middle temporal gyrus(t=1.92), the right superior temporal gyrus(t=2.84), the right insula(t=3.03), the right precuneus(t=2.98), the bilateral middle frontal gyrus (t=3.64, t=2.25), the right postcentral gyrus (t=2.20), the right cingulate gyrus (t=4.04), the bilateral precuneus(t=2.79, t=1.87); increased activation in the left caudate body(t=1.91), the left pulvinar(t=2.56), the left middle temporal gyrus(t=1.89), the left precentral gyrus(t=2.02) (P<0.05, uncorrected). Conclusion The abnormal activation in the brain regions related with attentional control processing is detected in the male recurrent unipolar recurrent major depression, performances of limbic system increased and.cortex declined more in the recurrent depressed. Key words: Male; Depression; Attentional control; Cortical-limbic pathways; Magnetoencephalography