Sara P, et al. – This research scrutinized the impact of both early and recent stress events on white matter microstructure in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients and healthy volunteers. Results of this study suggested that exposure to both early and recent stress exerts a widespread impact on WM microstructure of MDD patients, with a different impact possibly depending on the developmental period in which the stress has occurred.

Methods

• For the purpose of this study, 65 MDD inpatients and 59 healthy controls underwent MRI acquisition of diffusion tensor images with a 3.0 T scanner.
• On the Risky Families Questionnaire and on the Social Readjustment Rating Scale, severity of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) and recent stressful events (RSE) was rated, respectively.

Results

• A significant impact of diagnosis was seen, with MDD subjects demonstrating decreased fractional anisotropy (FA) and axial diffusivity (AD) compared to healthy controls in all the major association, projection and commissural tracts.
• In patients with MDD, however, not in healthy controls, both ACE and RSE correlated with measures of WM microstructure: ACE correlated negatively with AD and MD, whereas RSE correlated negatively with FA.