Elevated Body Weight Modulates Subcortical Volume Change and Associated Clinical Response Following Electroconvulsive Therapy

Overview

Journal J Psychiatry Neurosci

Specialty Psychiatry

Date 2021 Jul 5

PMID 34223741

Citations 2

Authors

Nils Opel

Katherine L Narr

Christopher Abbott

Miklos Argyelan

Randall Espinoza

Louise Emsell

Filip Bouckaert

Pascal Sienaert

Mathieu Vandenbulcke

Pia Nordanskog

Jonathan Repple

Erhan Kavakbasi

Martin B Jorgensen

Olaf B Paulson

Lars G Hanson

Annemieke Dols

Eric van Exel

Mardien L Oudega

Akihiro Takamiya

Taishiro Kishimoto

Olga Therese Ousdal

Jan Haavik

Asa Hammar

Ketil Joachim Oedegaard

Ute Kessler

Hauke Bartsch

Anders M Dale

Bernhard T Baune

Udo Dannlowski

Leif Oltedal

Ronny Redlich

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Obesity is a frequent somatic comorbidity of major depression, and it has been associated with worse clinical outcomes and brain structural abnormalities. Converging evidence suggests that electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) induces both clinical improvements and increased subcortical grey matter volume in patients with depression. However, it remains unknown whether increased body weight modulates the clinical response and structural neuroplasticity that occur with ECT.

Methods: To address this question, we conducted a longitudinal investigation of structural MRI data from the Global ECT-MRI Research Collaboration (GEMRIC) in 223 patients who were experiencing a major depressive episode (10 scanning sites). Structural MRI data were acquired before and after ECT, and we assessed change in subcortical grey matter volume using FreeSurfer and Quarc.

Results: Higher body mass index (BMI) was associated with a significantly lower increase in subcortical grey matter volume following ECT. We observed significant negative associations between BMI and change in subcortical grey matter volume, with pronounced effects in the thalamus and putamen, where obese participants showed increases in grey matter volume that were 43.3% and 49.6%, respectively, of the increases found in participants with normal weight. As well, BMI significantly moderated the association between subcortical grey matter volume change and clinical response to ECT. We observed no significant association between BMI and clinical response to ECT.

Limitations: Because only baseline BMI values were available, we were unable to study BMI changes during ECT and their potential association with clinical and grey matter volume change.

Conclusion: Future studies should take into account the relevance of body weight as a modulator of structural neuroplasticity during ECT treatment and aim to further explore the functional relevance of this novel finding.

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