de Kovel CGF, Aftanas L, Aleman A, et al. - Researchers investigated data of individuals with major depression and healthy control subjects for differences in laterality in measures of cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and subcortical volume. From 31 separate data sets, they retrieved data regarding the laterality of thickness and surface area measures of 34 cerebral cortical regions in 2,256 individuals with major depression and 3,504 controls. From 32 data sets, they assessed data regarding volume asymmetries of eight subcortical structures in 2,540 individuals with major depression and 4,230 controls. Analysis suggests little relevance of altered brain macro-anatomical asymmetry to major depression etiology in most cases. They identified no significant association of asymmetry measures with medication use, acute compared with remitted status, first episode compared with recurrent status, or age at onset.