Science Advances: The Cao Xiong/Feng Yanqiu team found that astrocytes dysfunction led to abnormal resting functional connectivity in patients with depression

Depression is a common mental disorder, mainly manifested as low mood, decreased interest, slow thinking, poor diet and sleep and other symptoms, but also produce pessimism, world-weariness and even suicidal tendencies
.
In addition, depression has been linked to
an increased incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and Alzheimer's disease.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression has become

However, the mechanism of depression is unclear and objective diagnostic indicators
are lacking.
Resting functional magnetic resonance (rsFC) has great potential in the clinical diagnosis and guidance of treatment of depression, but the mechanism of abnormal rsFC in depression remains unclear
.

Recently, the team of Cao Xiong and Feng Yanqiu of Southern Medical University published a research paper
entitled: Astrocyte dysfunction drives abnormal resting-state functional connectivity in depression in Science Advances.
The study is the first to find that astrocytes dysfunction leads to abnormal
resting functional connectivity in patients with depression.

The study found that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) imaging found that astrocytes with functional glial dysfunction Itpr2-/- decreased rsFC in brain regions associated with depression; Interestingly, the analysis of the large sample data of the REST-meta-MDD Imaging Consortium for Depressed Patients found that the rsFC abnormalities of depressed patients were highly consistent with those of Itpr2-/-mice, especially the rsFC of the mPFC-related loop.
Using optogenetics combined with fMRI technology, optogenetically specific activation increases mPFC astrocyte Ca2+ signaling can increase rsFC in depression-related brain regions; The above results suggest that astrocyte dysfunction leads to abnormal rsFC in depression
.

Further manganese ion enhancement MRI results showed that the nerve activity of the Itpr2-/-mouse mPFC-Str loop was reduced.
Optogenetics combined with fMRI technology was used to specifically activate mPFC neurons or mPFC-Str loops, which increased the neural activity of mPFC-Str circuits, thereby enhancing mPFC-Str rsFC and reversing Itpr2-/- depressive-like behavior in mice
.

This study is the first to identify and elucidate the abnormalities of neural circuits and rsFC associated with depression caused by astrocytes dysfunction; The joint analysis of brain function network between gene knockout mice and depressed patients can provide scientific basis
for accurate diagnosis and guidance of depression functional magnetic resonance treatment.

Dr.
Jiaming Liu and Dr.
Jiawen Mo from Biomedical Engineering from Southern Medical University are joint first authors of the paper, while Professor Cao Xiong from the Department of Neurobiology of Southern Medical University, Professor Feng Yanqiu from the Institute of Medical Information of the School of Biomedical Engineering and Professor Ed X.
Wu from the University of Hong Kong are co-corresponding authors
of the paper.

Original source:

JIAMING LIU， et al.
Astrocyte dysfunction drives abnormal resting-state functional connectivity in depression.
SCIENCE ADVANCES， 16 Nov 2022， Vol 8， Issue 46.