Aberrant Resting-State Regional Activity in Patients with Postpartum Depression

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the alterations of individual local connectivity by regional homogeneity (ReHo) in patients with postpartum depression (PPD) during resting state, and their potential correlations with clinical severity. Thirty patients with PPD and twenty-nine matched healthy postpartum women within 4 weeks after delivery were recruited and performed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans. The ReHo value was computed as Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (KCC) in the present study, and intergroup differences in the voxel manner were analyzed. Correlations between ReHo values and clinical variables were also analyzed. Compared with healthy postpartum women, patients with PPD exhibited significantly higher ReHo in left precuneus and right hippocampus. ReHo was significantly lower in left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and right insula. Furthermore, ReHo values within the dlPFC negatively correlated with the Edinburgh postpartum depression scale (EPDS) score. The ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of the above four brain regions are all over 0.7. This study provided evidences of aberrant regional functional activity within brain regions involved in the maternal care network in PPD, and may contribute to the further understanding of neurobiology underlying PPD.