In a new breakthrough research, scientists have observed that a brain network grows twice in size in people suffering from depression.
This network is known as the frontostriatal salience network and although, how this region of the brain functions has not been fully understood, it has been earlier linked to filtering of external stimuli and reward processing in the brain.
The research was carried out by a team from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and the researchers believe that this discovery will help in creating future treatments for dementia, especially one which is specifically targeted to the brain network.
“We found that the frontostriatal salience network is expanded nearly twofold in the cortex of most individuals with depression,” wrote the researchers in the paper.
“This effect was replicable in several samples and caused primarily by network border shifts, with three distinct modes of encroachment occurring in different individuals,” they added.
How do the researchers analyse the brain network?
The research hinted that the frontostriatal salience network could enter a space which is generally the domain of other functional networks. The researchers have observed such border shifts getting inherited genetically in people.
The research can be used for precise functional mapping which can give the researchers a detailed look into every individual brain.
The researchers carried out an initial analysis of brain scans of 57 individuals – who were an average age of 41 – and compared it to 37 healthy controls which were identified in the frontostriatal salience network expansion.
The tests were also carried out on a smaller group over a year and a half and the brain image data collected from 114 children before and after a depression diagnosis showed similar results.
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“Salience network expansion was stable over time, unaffected by mood state, and detectable in children before the onset of depression later in adolescence,” stated the researchers.
The observation of the frontostriatal salience network expansion in the kids before diagnosis of depression suggested that it was a contributor to depression and a risk factor.
“These findings identify a trait-like brain network topology that may confer risk for depression and mood-state-dependent connectivity changes in frontostriatal circuits that predict the emergence and remission of depressive symptoms over time,” the researchers wrote in the paper.
(With inputs from agencies)