ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition, Psychology and Brain Health
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1615978
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Foundational Components and Elements of Plant Foods for Neurological Nutrition and Well-beingView all 4 articles
Changes of functional brain network topology associated with nutritional indicator of patients with recurrent major depressive disorder
Provisionally accepted- 1Zhengzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
- 2Children’s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Liaoning Province, China
- 3Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Introduction: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is generally categorized into first-episode MDD (fMDD) and recurrent MDD (rMDD). This study aimed to investigate the changes of brain network, as well as the relationships between relapses, brain regions, nutritional and metabolic indicators by resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and graph theoretical analysis.Methods: Thirty-two fMDD patients, 32 rMDD patients, and 32 healthy controls (HCs) underwent rs-fMRI scanning. Graph theoretical analysis was applied to examine the nodal strength and nodal global efficiency of brain networks. In addition, the nutritional and metabolic indicators were acquired from all patients. The differences of demographic, clinical data and topological parameters between groups were compared. Moreover, the relationships between number of relapses, topological parameters of brain regions, nutritional and metabolic indicators were evaluated.Results: Patients with rMDD showed decreased level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) when compared with those with fMDD. Both fMDD and rMDD patients showed decreased nodal strength and global efficiency in the left amygdala compared to HCs. Additionally, rMDD patients exhibited more extensive network disruptions, including decreased nodal strength in the right middle frontal gyrus, left middle cingulate gyrus, left posterior cingulate gyrus, left hippocampus, and right amygdala, as well as decreased nodal global efficiency in multiple regions involved in emotional processing and cognitive control. Moreover, the number of episodes were negatively associated with the level of BDNF, nodal strength of right amygdala and nodal global efficiency of right amygdala of rMDD patients. The level of BDNF were positively related to nodal strength of right amygdala and nodal global efficiency of right amygdala of rMDD patients.Conclusion: Our findings revealed distinct patterns of brain network topology between fMDD and rMDD patients, with rMDD patients showing more widespread disruptions, which might be associated with greater number of relapses and worse level of neurological nutrition. These results suggested that recurrent depressive episodes might related to progressive disruptions in brain, particularly in regions involved in emotional processing and regulation.
Keywords: Major Depressive Disorder, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, functional brain network, Recurrence, Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
Received: 22 Apr 2025; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Jiang, Zhou, Wang, Dai, Zhang, Yu and Zhang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jing Yu, Nanjing Brain Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, Jiangsu Province, China
Gangzhong Zhang, Zhengzhou Seventh People’s Hospital, Zhengzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.