Hippocampal neuroplasticity and neurogenesis in major depressive disorder: a high field MRI study
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Abstract
The hippocampus is a brain structure responsible for memory, learning, and the stress response; it is also used as a model for major depressive disorder (MDD) in preclinical studies. Preclinical models have shown that the hippocampal subfields are differentially affected by chronic stress. Studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have shown reductions in hippocampal volumes MDD. With the high-field 4.7 Tesla MRI, we have for the first time analyzed the hippocampal subfields in vivo in patients with MDD and healthy controls. Our data suggest that MDD patients had smaller volumes of the cornu ammonis (CA) and dentate gyrus (DG) subfields of the hippocampus, which contributed to an overall reduction in the total volume of the hippocampus and its subregions. Our results also suggested that antidepressant treatment might reverse these volumetric reductions in the CA and DG subfields as suggested previously in preclinical studies.