Prediction of post-earthquake depressive and anxiety symptoms: a longitudinal resting-state fMRI study

Neurobiological markers of stress symptom progression for healthy survivors from a disaster (e.g., an earthquake) would greatly help with early intervention to prevent the development of stress-related disorders. However, the relationship between the neurobiological alterations and the symptom progression over time is unclear. Here, we examined 44 healthy survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake in China in a longitudinal resting-state fMRI study to observe the alterations of brain functions related to depressive or anxiety symptom progression. Using multi-variate pattern analysis to the fMRI data, we successfully predicted the depressive or anxiety symptom severity for these survivors in short- (25 days) and long-term (2 years) and the symptom severity changes over time. Several brain areas (e.g., the frontolimbic and striatal areas) and the functional connectivities located within the fronto-striato-thalamic and default-mode networks were found to be correlated with the symptom progression and might play important roles in the adaptation to trauma.