Altered Regional Cerebral Blood Flow of Right Cerebellum Posterior Lobe in Asthmatic Patients With or Without Depressive Symptoms

• Main Authors: Yuqun Zhang, Yuan Yang, Ze Wang, Rongrong Bian, Wenhao Jiang, Yingying Yin, Yingying Yue, Zhenghua Hou, Yonggui Yuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2018-05-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychiatry
• Subjects: depression; asthma; cerebral blood flow; pulsed arterial spin labeling; cerebellum
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00225/full

Background: Asthma is a chronic disease appeared to be associated with depression. But the underpinnings of depression in asthma remain unknown. In order to understand the neural mechanisms of depression in asthma, we used cerebral blood flow (CBF) to probe the difference between depressed asthmatic (DA) and non-depressed asthmatic (NDA) patients.Methods: Eighteen DA patients, 24 NDA patients and 57 healthy controls (HC) received pulsed arterial spin labeling (pASL) scan for measuring CBF, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) scan, severity of depression and asthma control assessment, respectively.Results: Compared to NDA, DA patients showed increased regional CBF (rCBF) in the right cerebellum posterior lobe. Compared to HC, DA, and NDA patients all showed significantly decreased rCBF in the right cerebellum posterior lobe.Conclusions: We showed the first evidence of altered rCBF in the right cerebellum posterior lobe in asthma using pASL, which appeared to be involved in the neuropathology in asthma.Clinical Trial Registration: An investigation of therapeutic mechanism in asthmatic patients: based on the results of Group Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Registration number: ChiCTR-COC-15007442) (http://www.chictr.org.cn/usercenter.aspx).