Abstract #4212

Altered White Matter Microstructure in Elderly Major Depressive Disorder Patients: A DTI Study

Daniel Han-en Chang^1,2, L. Tugan Muftuler^1,2, Huali Wang³, Orhan Nalcioglu^1,2, Min-Ying Lydia Su^1,2

¹Tu & Yuen Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States; ²Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States; ³Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, Peking University Institute of Mental Health, Beijing 10083, China, People's Republic of

Studies have suggested that white matter lesions (WML), which represent microvascular ischemic changes often indicative of tissue dysfunction, may have a significant effect on diffusivity measurements of the white matter of the brain. Here we compared the fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) values between one group of AD patients possessing WML and another group of AD patients possessing no WML with tract-based spatial statistics. Significant differences in FA were found in several brain regions corresponding to the anterior thalamic radiation and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, suggesting that the presence of WML has a significant effect on DTI measurements.