SynthesisJournal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN2013
Is depression a disconnection syndrome? Meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging studies in patients with MDD.
Synthesis in Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 180 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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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.
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Who cites it
180 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 461 citations in OpenAlex.
- A working model linking the psychopathology and pathophysiology of major depressive disorder - an umbrella review of neuroimaging studies and a conceptual framework.Molecular psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Neurofilament Light Protein as a Biomarker in Severe Mental Disorders: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Pooled it
- Brain connectivity in major depressive disorder: a precision component of treatment modalities?Translational psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Structural connectivity associated with familial risk for mental illness: A meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging studies in relatives of patients with severe mental disorders.Human brain mapping · 2022Pooled it
- Altered White Matter Microstructures in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A Coordinate-Based Meta-Analysis of Diffusion Tensor Imaging Studies.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Pooled it
- Disrupted focal white matter integrity in autism spectrum disorder: A voxel-based meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging studies.Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry · 2018Pooled it
- Exercise effects on depression: Possible neural mechanisms.General hospital psychiatry · 2017Pooled it
- Microstructural brain abnormalities in medication-free patients with major depressive disorder: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging.Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN · 2017Pooled it
- Disorganization of white matter architecture in major depressive disorder: a meta-analysis of diffusion tensor imaging with tract-based spatial statistics.Scientific reports · 2016Pooled it
- Effects of antidepressant medications on brain tissue microstructure in persistent depressive disorder across two randomized controlled trials.NeuroImage. Clinical · 2026Trial
- White matter predicts tDCS antidepressant effects in a sham-controlled clinical trial study.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Cerebral diffusion kurtosis imaging to assess the pathophysiology of postpartum depression.Scientific reports · 2020Trial
- Early deprivation, atypical brain development, and internalizing symptoms in late childhood.Neuroscience · 2017Trial
- Dissociable self effects for emotion regulation: a study of Chinese major depressive outpatients.BioMed research international · 2014Trial
- The Escitalopram versus Electric Current Therapy for Treating Depression Clinical Study (ELECT-TDCS): rationale and study design of a non-inferiority, triple-arm, placebo-controlled clinical trial.Sao Paulo medical journal = Revista paulista de medicinaTrial
- Network-level disconnectivity tracks poststroke depressive symptom improvement.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2026Observational
- Genetic architecture of white matter microstructure captured by unsupervised deep representation learning of fractional anisotropy maps.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Divergent Myelination or Divergent Trajectories? Insights from MPF Mapping in Bipolar Disorder and Recurrent Depressive Disorder.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Gray and White matter microstructural alterations in major depressive disorder: a multi-center diffusion imaging study.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Hippocampal subfield-specific imaging in depression: the translational power of ultra-high field MRI.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
120 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
11 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMany studies using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) have demonstrated impaired white matter integrity in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), with significant results found in diverse brain regions. We sought to identify whether there are consistent changes of regional white matter integrity in patients with MDD, as shown by decreased fractional anisotropy in DTI.
methodA systematic search strategy was used to identify relevant whole brain voxel-based DTI studies of patients with MDD in relation to comparison groups. Relevant databases were searched for studies published between January 1994 and February 2011 using combinations of the terms "DTI" or "diffusion tensor;" "whole brain" or "voxel-based;" and "depress*." Using the studies that met our inclusion criteria, we performed a meta-analysis of the coordinates of decreased fractional anisotropy using the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) method, which detects 3-dimensional conjunctions of coordinates from multiple studies, weighted by sample size. We then used DTIquery software for fibre tracking to locate the fascicles involved in each region.
resultsWe included 11 studies with a combined sample of 231 patients with MDD and 261 comparison participants, providing 50 coordinates of decreased fractional anisotropy. Our meta-analysis identified 4 consistent locations of decreased fractional anisotropy in patients with MDD: white matter in the right frontal lobe, right fusiform gyrus, left frontal lobe and right occipital lobe. Fibre tracking showed that the main fascicles involved were the right inferior longitudinal fasciculus, right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, right posterior thalamic radiation and interhemispheric fibres running through the genu and body of the corpus callosum. LIMITATIONS: The number of studies included was relatively small, and the DTI data acquisition and analysis techniques were heterogeneous. The ALE method cannot handle studies with no significant group differences.
conclusionVoxel-based analysis of DTI studies of patients with MDD consistently identified decreased fractional anisotropy in the white matter fascicles connecting the prefrontal cortex within cortical (frontal, temporal and occipital lobes) and subcortical areas (amygdala and hippocampus). This isstrong evidence for the involvement of these neural circuits in the pathology of MDD.
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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.