Xu D, Xu G, Zhao Z, et al. - Researchers herein assessed magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging data from 45 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 41 healthy controls (HCs) with the aim to compare the two groups with respect to their network indices based on a 246-region Brainnetcome Atlas. In addition, investigation was conducted in the MDD subgroups, which were subgrouped based on their duration of the disease. In the correlation analyses, the caudal lingual gyrus in the right hemisphere and the rostral lingual gyrus in the left hemisphere were noted to be particularly linked with disease duration. Per analyses, duration of the illness seems to influence the networking patterns. The heterogeneity of the MDD clinical subgroups may blur or hide the networking abnormalities in MDD patients. In patients with a relative short term of the illness, brain plasticity may introduce a recovery effect to the abnormal network patterns observed in these patients, as the abnormalities may disappear in those with long duration of MDD (>10 years).