AUTHOR=Zhang Yuqun , Yang Yuan , Wang Ze , Bian Rongrong , Jiang Wenhao , Yin Yingying , Yue Yingying , Hou Zhenghua , Yuan Yonggui 

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

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=Volume 9 - 2018

YEAR=2018

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00225

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00225

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=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: 18 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, and clinical assessments.
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.