Magnetization Transfer Imaging of Suicidal Patients with Major Depressive Disorder

Magnetization transfer imaging (MTI) provides a quantitative measure of the macromolecular structural integrity of brain tissue, as represented by magnetization transfer ratio (MTR). In this study, we utilized MTI to identify biophysical alterations in MDD patients with a history of suicide attempts relative to MDD patients without such history. The participants were 36 medication-free MDD patients, with (N = 17) and without (N = 19) a history of a suicide attempt, and 28 healthy controls matched for age and gender. Whole brain voxel-based analysis was used to compare MTR across three groups and to analyze correlations with symptom severity and illness duration. We identified decreased MTR in left inferior parietal lobule and right superior parietal lobule in suicide attempters relative to both non-attempters and controls. Non-attempters also showed significantly reduced MTR in left inferior parietal lobule relative to controls, as well as an MTR reduction in left cerebellum. These abnormalities were not correlated with symptom severity or illness duration. Depressed patients with a history of suicide attempt showed bilateral abnormalities in parietal cortex compared to nonsuicidal depressed patients and healthy controls. Parietal lobe abnormalities might cause attentional dysfunction and impaired decision making to increase risk for suicidal behavior in MDD.