ArticleProgress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry2018
Elevated striatal γ-aminobutyric acid in youth with major depressive disorder.
Article in Progress in neuro-psychopharmacology & biological psychiatry, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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
14 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Meta-analysis and open-source database for in vivo brain Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy in health and disease.Analytical biochemistry · 2023Pooled it
- Diminished reward responsiveness is associated with lower reward network GluCEST: an ultra-high field glutamate imaging study.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- A Systematic Review: Investigating Biomarkers of Anhedonia and Amotivation in Depression and Cannabis Use.JAACAP open · 2025Review
- Single-Nucleus Transcriptomics of the Nucleus Accumbens Reveals Cell-Type-Specific Dysregulation in Adolescent Macaques with Depressive-Like Behaviors.Neuroscience bulletin · 2025Article
- Correlation analysis between clinical effective emotional treatment and plasma N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor function-related indexes.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) levels in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex are negatively associated with food motivation in a pediatric sample.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Meta-analysis and Open-source Database for In Vivo Brain Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in Health and Disease.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Examining the Role of GLU/GABA to GLN Metabolic Cycle in the Pathogenesis of Post-Stroke Depressive Disorder and Insomnia.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2023Article
- Carnitine and Depression.Frontiers in nutrition · 2022Review
- Glutamate and GABA Homeostasis and Neurometabolism in Major Depressive Disorder.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Review
- Accelerated J-resolvedMagnetic resonance in medicine · 2021Article
- Multimodal Investigations of Reward Circuitry and Anhedonia in Adolescent Depression.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Review
- Chronic Stress in a Rat Model of Depression Disturbs the Glutamine-Glutamate-GABA Cycle in the Striatum, Hippocampus, and Cerebellum.Neuropsychiatric disease and treatment · 2020Article
- Chronic unpredictable mild stress induced depression-like behaviours and glutamate-glutamine cycling dysfunctions in both blood and brain of mice.Pharmaceutical biology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAlterations in γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) have been hypothesized to play a role in the pathogenesis of psychiatric illness. Our previous work has specifically linked anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) GABA deficits with anhedonia in youth with major depressive disorder (MDD). As anhedonia reflects alterations within the reward circuitry, we sought to extend this investigation and examine GABA levels in another key reward-related region, the striatum, in the same adolescent population.
methodsThirty-six youth [20 with MDD and 16 healthy controls; (HC)], ages 12 to 21 years old, underwent J-edited proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (
resultsDepressed youth had unexpectedly higher GABA levels in the striatum compared to HC. In both depressed and healthy youth, GABA levels were higher in the striatum than in the ACC, while the differences in depressed youth were greater. Moreover, in depressed youth, higher striatal GABA above the mean of HCs was correlated with lower ACC GABA below the mean of HCs. Striatal GABA was not correlated with clinical symptomatology in this small sample.
conclusionsTogether, these findings suggest that higher striatal GABA levels may serve some compensatory function as a result of lower ACC GABA in depressed adolescents. It is also possible that, like lower ACC GABA, higher striatal GABA might simply be another pathological feature of adolescent depression.
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Registered trials
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