Skip to main content

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Neuroimaging
Sec. Clinical Neuroimaging
Volume 3 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnimg.2024.1465612

Brain-based correlates of depression and traumatic brain injury: A systematic review of structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies

Provisionally accepted
Vanessa A. Baltazar Vanessa A. Baltazar Ilya Demchenko Ilya Demchenko Vanessa K. Tassone Vanessa K. Tassone Rachel L. Sousa-Ho Rachel L. Sousa-Ho Tom A. Schweizer Tom A. Schweizer Venkat Bhat Venkat Bhat *
  • Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Depression is prevalent after traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, there is a lack of understanding of the brain-based correlates of depression post-TBI. This systematic review aimed to synthesize findings of structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies to identify consistently reported neural correlates of depression post-TBI. A search for relevant published studies was conducted through OVID (MEDLINE, APA PsycINFO, and Embase), with an end date of August 3rd, 2023. Fourteen published studies were included in this review. TBI patients with depression exhibited distinct changes in diffusion-based white matter fractional anisotropy, with the direction of change depending on the acuteness or chronicity of TBI. Decreased functional connectivity (FC) of the salience and default mode networks was prominent alongside the decreased volume of grey matter within the insular, dorsomedial prefrontal, and ventromedial prefrontal cortices. Seven studies reported the correlation between observed neuroimaging and depression outcomes. Of these studies, 42% indicated that FC of the bilateral medial temporal lobe subregions was correlated with depression outcomes in TBI. This systematic review summarizes existing neuroimaging evidence and reports brain regions that can be leveraged as potential treatment targets in future studies examining depression post-TBI.

    Keywords: Depressive Disorder, Brain Injuries, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neural Pathways, Neuroimaging, Systematic review, Traumatic Brain Injury

    Received: 16 Jul 2024; Accepted: 14 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Baltazar, Demchenko, Tassone, Sousa-Ho, Schweizer and Bhat. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Venkat Bhat, Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.