Psychology Research and Behavior Management (Apr 2024)

Association of Retinal Neurovascular Impairment with Disease Severity in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder: An Optical Coherence Tomography Angiography Study

  • Wang Y,
  • Li C,
  • Liu L,
  • Yang Y,
  • He X,
  • Li G,
  • Zheng X,
  • Ren Y,
  • Zhao H,
  • Du Z,
  • Jiang J,
  • Kuang Y,
  • Jia F,
  • Yu H,
  • Yang X

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 17
pp. 1573 – 1585

Abstract

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Yan Wang,1,2,* Cong Li,1,2,* Lei Liu,1,* Yuan Yang,3,* Xue He,1,2 Gang Li,3 Xianzhen Zheng,3 Yun Ren,1,4 Hanpeng Zhao,1,5 Zhenchao Du,1,4 Jianrong Jiang,1,5 Yu Kuang,1 Fujun Jia,3 Honghua Yu,1 Xiaohong Yang1,2 1Guangdong Eye Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital (Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences), Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Medicine, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 3Guangdong Mental Health Center, Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital (Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences), Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 4Shantou University Medical College, Shantou, People’s Republic of China; 5The Second School of Clinical Medicine, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xiaohong Yang; Honghua Yu, Email [email protected]; [email protected]: Identifying the fundus objective biomarkers for the major depressive disorders (MDD) may help promote mental health. The aim of this study was to evaluate retinal neurovascular changes and further investigate their association with disease severity in MDD.Methods: This cross-sectional study conducted in the hospital enrolled patients with MDD and healthy controls.The retinal neurovascular parameters for all subjects, including vessel density (VD), thickness of ganglion cell complex (GCC) and retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL), and optic nerve head (ONH) eg are automatically calculated by the software in optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA). The severity of MDD including depressive symptoms, anxiety, cognition, and insomnia was assessed by Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD), Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) respectively.Results: This study included 74 MDD patients (n=74 eyes) and 60 healthy controls (HCs) (n=60 eyes). MDD patients showed significantly decreased VD of superficial and deep capillary plexus, thickness of GCC and RNFL, and volume of ONH (all p< 0.05) and increased vertical cup-to-disc ratio and global loss volume (GLV) (all p< 0.05) compared to HCs. Positive associations were found between HAMD scores and cup area (r=0.30, p=0.035), cup volume (r=0.31, p=0.029), and disc area (r=0.33, p=0.020) as well as ISI scores and RNFL thickness (r=0.34, p=0.047).Conclusion: We found the retinal neurovascular impairment and its association with disease severity in MDD patients. OCTA showed promise as a potential complementary assessment tool for MDD.Keywords: major depressive disorder, retinal neurovasculature, optical coherence tomography angiography, disease severity

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