Visual Event-Related Potentials as Markers of Hyperarousal in Gulf War Illness: Evidence Against a Stress-Related Etiology.

Visual event-related potentials as markers of hyperarousal in Gulf War illness: Evidence against a stress-related etiology.

Filed under: Depression Treatment

Psychiatry Res. 2012 Nov 10;
Tillman GD, Calley CS, Green TA, Buhl VI, Biggs MM, Spence JS, Briggs RW, Haley RW, Kraut MA, Hart Jr J

An exaggerated response to emotional stimuli is among the many symptoms widely reported by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These symptomologies have been attributed to damage and dysfunction associated with deployment-related exposures. We collected event-related potential data from 22 veterans meeting Haley criteria for Gulf War (GW) Syndromes 1-3 and from 8 matched GW veteran controls, who were deployed but not symptomatic, while they performed a visual three-condition oddball task where images authenticated to be associated with the 1991 Persian Gulf War were the distractor stimuli. Hyperarousal reported by ill veterans was significantly greater than that by control veterans, but this was not paralleled by higher amplitude P3a in their ERP responses to GW-related distractor stimuli. Whereas previous studies of PTSD patients have shown higher amplitude P3b responses to target stimuli that are placed amid trauma-related nontarget stimuli, ill veterans in this study showed P3b amplitudes to target stimuli – placed amid GW-related nontarget stimuli – that were significantly lower than those of the control group. Hyperarousal scores reliably predicted P3b, but not P3a, amplitudes. Although many factors may contribute to P3b amplitude differences – most notably depression and poor sleep quality, symptoms that are prevalent in the GW syndrome groups – our findings in context of previous studies on this population are consistent with the contention that dysfunction in cholinergic and dopaminergic neurotransmitter systems, and in white matter and basal ganglia may be contributing to impairments in GW veterans.
HubMed – depression

Effect of magnetic seizure therapy on regional brain glucose metabolism in major depression.

Filed under: Depression Treatment

Psychiatry Res. 2012 Nov 10;
Hoy KE, Thomson RH, Cherk M, Yap KS, Daskalakis ZJ, Fitzgerald PB

BACKGROUND: Currently electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is one of the only available therapies for treatment resistant depression (TRD). While effective, ECT is complicated by side-effects including cognitive impairment. One promising potential alternative is magnetic seizure therapy (MST). To date, no research has explored the effects of 100Hz MST on brain activity or the brain changes associated with response to treatment. OBJECTIVES: Therefore the aim of this study was to determine the effects of a treatment course of 100Hz MST on regional brain glucose metabolism. METHODS: Ten patients with treatment resistant depression underwent FDG-PET brain scans before and after a treatment course of MST. Changes in the relative metabolic rate of a priori brain regions were investigated. RESULTS: Areas of increased relative metabolism after treatment were seen in the basal ganglia, orbitofrontal cortex, medial frontal cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. A secondary analysis showed trend-level differential findings in brain activation between responders and non responders, namely in the ventral anterior cingulate. CONCLUSION: These results primarily indicate that MST is affecting regions consistent with the limbic-cortical dysregulation model of depression. Exploratory analysis indicated some differential findings in brain activation between responders and non responders were also evident; however the small sample size precludes any firm conclusions.
HubMed – depression

Altered brain function underlying verbal memory encoding and retrieval in psychotic major depression.

Filed under: Depression Treatment

Psychiatry Res. 2012 Nov 10;
Kelley R, Garrett A, Cohen J, Gomez R, Lembke A, Keller J, Reiss AL, Schatzberg A

Psychotic major depression (PMD) is associated with deficits in verbal memory as well as other cognitive impairments. This study investigated brain function in individuals with PMD during a verbal declarative memory task. Participants included 16 subjects with PMD, 15 subjects with non-psychotic major depression (NPMD) and 16 healthy controls (HC). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired while subjects performed verbal memory encoding and retrieval tasks. During the explicit encoding task, subjects semantically categorized words as either “man-made” or “not man-made.” For the retrieval task, subjects identified whether words had been presented during the encoding task. Functional MRI data were processed using SPM5 and a group by condition ANOVA. Clusters of activation showing either a significant main effect of group or an interaction of group by condition were further examined using t-tests to identify group differences. During the encoding task, the PMD group showed lower hippocampus, insula, and prefrontal activation compared to HC. During the retrieval task, the PMD group showed lower recognition accuracy and higher prefrontal and parietal cortex activation compared to both HC and NPMD groups. Verbal retrieval deficits in PMD may be associated with deficient hippocampus function during encoding. Increased brain activation during retrieval may reflect an attempt to compensate for encoding deficits.
HubMed – depression

What is the Right Treatment for Depression? – The right depression treatment is very individualized. And its not only treatment you need to be concerned about, but have you been diagnosed with the correct type of depression. Heres HealthyPlace.com Expert Depression Patient and author, Julie Fast, to explain.

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