Depression as a Disease of White Matter Network Disruption: Learning From Multiple Sclerosis
Year: 2025
Type: review
Abstract: Depression is a common and debilitating psychiatric disorder that is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. For nearly 40 years, scientists have attempted to localize depression in the brain with neuroimaging. Despite concerted research, many meta-analyses of neuroimaging research in depression have not identified a single brain region that, when lesioned, causes depression. However, recent work using coordinate and lesion network mapping has identified a distributed network from functional magnetic resonance imaging that is relevant for depression. In this review, we propose that multiple sclerosis (MS) is a powerful model to study the relationship between perturbations to white matter brain networks and depression. We highlight recent successes in using lesion network mapping to find associations between depression and MS lesion location and burden in retrospective samples. Next, we describe why prospective, longitudinal studies that track the onset of white matter lesions in MS with the emergence and resolution of depression may provide a way to understand both the pathophysiology of depression in MS and network mechanisms of depression more broadly.
Source: Biological Psychiatry
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $5,489
Funders: Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Biogen, University of Pennsylvania, Once Upon A Time Foundation, American Medical Association, Multiple Sclerosis Society, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Awards: Targeted modulation of symptom-specific brain circuits with transcranial magnetic stimulation, Statistical methods for large and complex databases of ultra-high-dimensional, G2827685798, Advanced Statistical Analytics of MRI in MS, Reproducible imaging-based brain growth charts for psychiatry, Identifying neuromodulation targets for pain in the human brain, G8426012211, G879606760, Depression as a disease of network disruption: learning from multiple sclerosis, Inter-modal Coupling Image Analytics, Using Brain Lesions and Deep Brain Stimulation to Identify an Epilepsy Circuit, Linking the Development of Association Cortex Plasticity to Trans-Diagnostic Psychopathology in Youth, Harmonization of Multi-Site Neuroimaging Data from Complex Study Designs, Toward Connectomic Deep Brain Stimulation in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, BRAIN CONNECTS: The center for Large-scale Imaging of Neural Circuits (LINC), Using human brain connectivity to identify the causal neuroanatomical substrate of depression symptoms
OpenAlex ID: W4416625019