Poster No:
677
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Naomi Gaggi1, Katherine Collins2, Aura Hurtado3, Xiaotong Song4, Zamfira Parincu2, Kathryn Evans5, Julie Clancy3, Anna Peterson4, Paolo Cassano6, Dan Iosifescu4
Institutions:
1New York University, Rockaway Park, NY, 2Nathan S. Kline Institute, Orangeburg, NY, 3Massachussets General Hospital, Boston, MA, 4New York University, New York, NY, 5Nathan S. Kline Institute, Orangeberg, NY, 6Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) have shown to have aberrant neuronal activity, or fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF), in the frontal region of the brain [1]. fALFF is a noninvasive neuroimaging measure of regional, voxel-wise, spontaneous fluctuations of the fMRI BOLD signal, which reflects variations in intrinsic brain activity [2]. Transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM) is a novel, noninvasive, and non-pharmacological treatment that uses red and/or near infrared light to penetrate the cortex and is believed to alter cerebral blood flow and enhance cognition. In this preliminary study, we aimed to explore the local (i.e., directly irradiated) and distal (i.e., global) effects of tPBM on fALFF, which may serve as an modifiable target, in MDD.
Methods:
We examined the change in fALFF in frontal regions directly irradiated by tPBM and distal regions not directly irradiated by tPBM. The 10 participants included in the analysis had mean age of 36 years, 70% female, 90% non-hispanic/latino, and were diagnosed with MDD. Then, they underwent three sequential resting state MRI scans (3T Siemens Trio & 12 channel head coil). Multi-echo echo planar imaging (EPI) was acquired pre-tPBM (baseline), during tPBM, and immediately post-tPBM. EPI parameters were: TR=2.5s; TE=12.8,32.33,51.04 ms; slice thickness 2.5 mm. Continuous wave tPBM was delivered via laser probes (808 nm) placed over the forehead bilaterally. Specific standard EEG electrode positions were directly irradiated (F4, F3, Fp2, Fp1, Fz, Fpz). fMRI data were pre-processed using afni_proc.py [3] customized for multi-echo EPI and FreeSurfer [4] was used to pre-process the structural T1. fALFF was calculated using afni 3dRSFC [5] and was extracted from regions of interest (ROI) using Marsbar [6]. The ROIs were created as 5 mm spheres centered on the cortical MRI coordinates of the bilateral irradiated regions [7]. All statistical tests were computed in R studio (R Core Team).
Results:
In our preliminary analysis, we found that there was a non-significant, slight decrease of global mean fALFF from pre-tPBM (mean = .99) to during tPBM (mean = .94; t= 1.50, p=.17), which then increased post-tPBM towards baseline levels (mean = .96; t=-2.134, p =.062 (uncorrected)) assessed using paired samples t-tests. The increase from during tPBM to post-tPBM was trending towards significance. Similarly, we found local fALFF effects in regions directly irradiated by tPBM followed the same pattern as the global trends. However, we found that there was only a significant change from baseline to during tPBM in the F4, approximated to the be the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC; t=2.27, p=.04 (uncorrected), Cohen's d=.91). No other regions showed significant differences when comparing the pre and during (F3: t=.14, p=.28 , FP1: t=1.34, p= .21, FP2: t=.49, p=.64, FPZ: t=-.36, p=.73, FZ: t=1.04, p=.33), and the pre and post conditions (F3: t=.23, p=.83, F4: t=.16, p=.88 , FP1: t=.40, p=.70, FP2: t=.34, p=.74, FPZ: t=-.60, p=.56, FZ: t=.33, p=.75).
Conclusions:
Despite a small sample size, the effect size of the change during the pre to during tPBM condition in F4/dlPFC was large. It is well-demonstrated that the right dlPFC hyperactivity is related to depression severity in MDD [8] and responds to other forms of neuromodulation (i.e., transcranial magnetic stimulation) [9]. These preliminary results indicate that hyperactive regions may be targets for modulation using tPBM in MDD. These results also suggest that fALFF could be useful in exploring diverse tPBM parameters to further enhance target engagement in the MDD population.
Brain Stimulation:
Non-Invasive Stimulation Methods Other 2
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia) 1
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
BOLD fMRI
Keywords:
MRI
Psychiatric
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
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