Cingulate Cortex Functional Connectivity Increase Predicts Relapse of Major Depression.

Naranjargal Dashdorj¹, Neil L. Nixon², G Worwood², M Liotti², E Georgiadi², D P. Auer¹, P F. Liddle²

Functional imaging studies suggest alterations in cortico-limbic circuit connectivity in depression. Moreover, these functional connectivity (fc) changes were found to correlate with symptom severity and normalised upon antidepressant treatment. The direction of these fc changes is however debated with one group showing increased default network connectivity and another showing decreased cortico-limbic connectivity. Nonetheless, more studies implicate cingulate gyrus as a focus of dysfunction. In this study, we compared fc of the rostral anterior cingulate between patients with history of remitted recurrent depression and healthy controls.