Individualized targeting is warranted in subcallosal cingulate gyrus deep brain stimulation for treatment‐resistant depression: A tractography analysis

Subcallosal cingulate gyrus (SCG) is a target of deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment‐resistant depression. However, previous randomized controlled trials report that approximately 42% of patients are responders to this therapy of last resort, and suboptimal targeting of SCG is a potential underlying factor to this unsatisfactory efficacy. Tractography has been proposed as a supplementary method to enhance targeting strategy. We performed a connectivity‐based segmentation in the SCG region via probabilistic tractography in 100 healthy volunteers from the Human Connectome Project. The SCG voxels with maximum connectivity to brain regions implicated in depression, including Brodmann Area 10 (BA10), cingulate cortex, thalamus, and nucleus accumbens were identified, and the conjunctions were deemed as tractography‐based targets. We then performed deterministic tractography using these targets in additional 100 volunteers to calculate streamline counts compassing to relevant brain regions and fibers. We also evaluated the intra‐ and inter‐subject variance using test–retest dataset. Two tractography‐based targets were identified. Tractography‐based target‐1 had the highest streamline counts to right BA10 and bilateral cingulate cortex, while tractography‐based target‐2 had the highest streamline counts to bilateral nucleus accumbens and uncinate fasciculus. The mean linear distance from individual tractography‐based target to anatomy‐based target was 3.2 ± 1.8 mm and 2.5 ± 1.4 mm in left and right hemispheres. The mean ± SD of targets between intra‐ and inter‐subjects were 2.2 ± 1.2 and 2.9 ± 1.4 in left hemisphere, and 2.3 ± 1.4 and 3.1 ± 1.7 in right hemisphere, respectively. Individual heterogeneity as well as inherent variability from diffusion imaging should be taken into account during SCG‐DBS target planning procedure.