Identifying major depressive disorder with associated sleep disturbances through fMRI regional homogeneity at rest

BackgroundAnomalies in regional homogeneity (ReHo) have been documented in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and sleep disturbances (SDs). This investigation aimed to scrutinize changes in ReHo in MDD patients with comorbid SD, and to devise potential diagnostic biomarkers for detecting sleep-related conditions in patients with MDD.MethodsPatients with MDD and healthy controls underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. SD severity was quantified using the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression. Subsequent to the acquisition of imaging data, ReHo analysis was performed, and a support vector machine (SVM) method was employed to assess the utility of ReHo in discriminating MDD patients with SD.ResultsCompared with MDD patients without SD, MDD patients with SD exhibited increased ReHo values in the right posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus, right median cingulate cortex, left postcentral gyrus (postCG), and right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG). Furthermore, the ReHo values in the right PCC/precuneus and ITG displayed a positive correlation with clinical symptoms across all patients. SVM classification results showed that a combination of abnormal ReHo in the left postCG and right ITG achieved an overall accuracy of 84.21%, a sensitivity of 81.82%, and a specificity of 87.50% in identifying MDD patients with SD from those without SD.ConclusionWe identified disrupted ReHo patterns in MDD patients with SD, and presented a prospective neuroimaging-based diagnostic biomarker for these patients.

Automated summary

The study identified disrupted ReHo patterns in MDD patients with SD, and proposed a potential neuroimaging-based diagnostic biomarker through abnormal ReHo values in left postCG and right ITG for high accuracy in discriminating SD in MDD patients, showing promise for diagnostic application.