The preliminary study of gender difference in brain white matter in major depression

Objective To investigate the gender difference of the white mater integrity between patients with major depressive disorder(MDD)and the healthy controls by diffusion tensor imaging(DTI).Methods Twenty-four patients with MDD(male 15,female 9)and thirty healthy controls(male 11,female 19)were underwent conventional magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)and DTI scanning and,DTI data were analyzed using whole-brain voxel-based analysis(VBA)method.Results Compared with male healthy controls,the male patients had significantly decreased fractional anisotropy(FA)in the left middle frontal gyrus,the right sub-gyrus of the temporal,the left fusiform gyrus,precuneus and sub-gyrus of the right parietal lobe(P0.001);Compared with female healthy controls,female patients had significantly decreased FA in the right superior frontal gyrus,sub-gyrus of the frontal gyrus,temporal sub-gyrus,left superior temporal gyrus and right posterior cingulate(P0.001);Compared with male patients,female patients had significantly decreased FA in the right sub-gyrus of the parietal lobule,left middle temporal gyrus,left precentral of the frontal lobe,right cingulate gyrus of the limbic lobe(P0.001);Compared with male subjects,the healthy female controls had significantly decreased FA only in the left middle occipital gyrus(P0.001).Conclusions Both male and female patients with MDD have abnormal white matter integrity regions.