ArticleJournal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN2011
Structural MRI correlates for vulnerability and resilience to major depressive disorder.
Article in Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 96 papers, 7 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
96 citing papers in PubMed, 7 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 257 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Relationship Between Family History of Depression and Brain Structure and Function: A Systematic Review of Large Cohorts.Biological psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- The Dark and Gloomy Brain: Grey Matter Volume Alterations in Major Depressive Disorder-Fine-Grained Meta-Analyses.Depression and anxiety · 2024Pooled it
- Pathological fear, anxiety and negative affect exhibit distinct neurostructural signatures: evidence from psychiatric neuroimaging meta-analysis.Translational psychiatry · 2022Pooled it
- Cognitive impairment and depression: Meta-analysis of structural magnetic resonance imaging studies.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2021Pooled it
- Application of a diathesis-stress model to the interplay of cortical structural development and emerging depression in youth.Clinical psychology review · 2020Pooled it
- Brain structural correlates of familial risk for mental illness: a meta-analysis of voxel-based morphometry studies in relatives of patients with psychotic or mood disorders.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2020Pooled it
- Computational meta-analysis of statistical parametric maps in major depression.Human brain mapping · 2016Pooled it
- Obesity-related differences in amygdala and hippocampal volume and metabolism before and after a placebo-controlled antidepressant trial in major depressive disorder.Scientific reports · 2026Trial
- Resilience beyond diagnosis: prospective neural correlates of better-than-expected outcomes in depression.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- Cumulative mild stress during early life alters prefrontal astrocytic proteins and elevates peripheral S100B in young adult mice.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Associations between residential segregation, ambient air pollution, and hippocampal features in recent trauma survivors.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Gray matter volume correlates of resilience: a coordinate-based meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- How three different theories of depression converge at inflammation.Discover mental health · 2025Review
- Ethanol-Induced Depression: Exploring the Underlying Molecular Mechanisms.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2025Review
- Adaptive Whole-Brain Dynamics Predictive Method: Relevancy to Mental Disorders.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2025Article
- Neurodevelopmental signature of a transcriptome-based polygenic risk score for depression.Psychiatry research · 2024Article
- Stress-Resilience Impacts Psychological Wellbeing: Evidence from Brain-Gut Microbiome Interactions.Nature. Mental health · 2024Article
- Early life adversity impacts alterations in brain structure and food addiction in individuals with high BMI.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Therapeutic potential and mechanisms of stem cells in major depressive disorder: a comprehensive review.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Review
- Familial risk for major depression: differential white matter alterations in healthy and depressed participants.Psychological medicine · 2023Article
36 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn major depressive disorder (MDD), it is unclear to what extent structural brain changes are associated with depressive episodes or represent part of the mechanism by which the risk for illness is mediated. The aim of this study was to investigate whether structural abnormalities are related to risk for the development of MDD.
methodsWe compared healthy controls with a positive family history for MDD (HC-FHP), healthy controls with no family history of any psychiatric disease (HC-FHN) and patients with MDD. Groups were age- and sex-matched. We analyzed data from high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging using voxel-based morphometry. We performed small volume corrections for our regions of interest (hippocampus, dorsolateral [DLPFC] and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex [DMPFC], anterior cingulate cortex [ACC] and basal ganglia) using a family-wise error correction (p < 0.05) to control for multiple comparisons.
resultsThere were 30 participants in the HC-FHP group, 64 in the HC-FHN group and 33 patients with MDD. The HC-FHP group had smaller right hippocampal and DLPFC grey matter volumes compared with the HC-FHN group, and even smaller right hippocampal volumes compared with patients with MDD. In addition, the HC-FHP group exhibited smaller white matter volumes in the DLPFC and left putamen but also greater volumes in 2 areas of the DMPFC compared with the HC-FHN group. Patients with MDD exhibited smaller volumes in the ACC, DMPFC, DLPFC and the basal ganglia compared with healthy controls. LIMITATIONS: The retrospective identification of family history might result in a bias toward unidentified participants in the control group at risk for MDD, diminishing the effect size.
conclusionVolume reductions in the hippocampus and DLPFC might be associated with a greater risk for MDD. The HC-FHP group had smaller hippocampal volumes compared with patients with MDD, which is suggestive for neuroplastic effects of treatment. The HC-FHP group had not yet experienced a depressive episode and therefore might have been resilient and might have had some protective strategies. Whether resilience is associated with the larger white matter volumes in the DMPFC (e.g., owing to compensatory, neuroplastic remodelling mechanisms) needs to be confirmed in future studies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.