Ji-Young Kim1,
Seong-Uk Jin2, Jee-Hye Seo2, Jang Woo Park2,
Jongsu Baek2, Moon Han2, Kyung-Eun Jang2,
Young-Hwan Lee*3, Yongmin Chang4, 5
1Medical
Science, Kyungpook National University School of Medicine, Daegu, Korea; 2Medical
& Biological Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea; 3Radiology,
Catholic University Medical Center, Daegu, Korea; 4Radiology,
Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea; 5Kyungpook National
University School of Medicine, Molecular Medicine, Daegu, Korea
Poststroke depression (PSD) is not only an important clinical issue as it will potentially affect the 20% to 70% of stroke survivors but also may provide a unique window into the pathophysiology of depression. While previous neuroimaging studies have mostly focused to identify a possible relationship between location of the brain damage and a risk for PSD, no studies have directly examined the intrinsic functional connectivity within depression-related neural network in PSD patients. In the present study, we investigate the possible alteration in functional connectivity (FC) within salient network (SN) associated with PSD using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI). Our FC matrix analysis of SN has revealed that functional connectivity patterns of brain regions within SN in PSD patients were extensively altered compared to healthy controls. Specifically, the negative correlations between limbic and dorsal frontal regions in healthy controls turned into positive correlations in PSD patients. The breakdown of negative correlation between limbic and dorsal frontal regions in PSD patients therefore suggests that the inhibitory process to prevent prolonged negative emotion seems to be impaired in PSD patients.