Quantitative Study of Brain Iron Deposition in Major Depression Disorder

The occurrence of depression may be related to the accumulation of iron in the brain. T1-weighted images were linearly registered into the QSM space, and then six regions of interest (ROIs) were obtained using the automated segmentation pipeline. Susceptibility values of major depression disorder (MDD) and healthy control (HC) groups were compared using the two-sided Student's t-test. The susceptibility of the left amygdala and right putamen in MDD patients were significantly increased, and positively correlated with the severity of depression and insomnia, respectively. The increased iron in the left amygdala may be a new biomarker for MDD.