Shaolin Yang1, 2, Olusola Ajilore1, Minjie Wu1, Melissa Lamar1, Anand Kumar1
1Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States; 2Department of Radiology, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States
Neuroanatomical abnormalities have been identified in patients with late-life mood disorders, including decrease in focal brain volumes and increase in white matter hyperintensity lesions. This study examined the integrity of macromolecular protein pool in normal-appearing white matter and subcortical nuclei by magnetization transfer imaging. Compared with control subjects, patients with late-life major depression had significantly lower magnetization transfer ratios in the genu of corpus callosum and the right head of caudate. These findings suggest late-life major depression is associated with compromised macromolecular proteins in white matter and subcortical nuclei and may have implications for the pathophysiology of late-life major depression.