Brain imaging analysis of neuronal network underlying pathophisiology in affective disorders.

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Combined dexamethasone/corticotropin-releasing hormone challenge test (DEX/CRH), which can detect dysfunction in the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal cortical (HPA) axis in mood disorders, were conducted both on 16 patients with mood disorders (mean age 61.7±14.4). The proportions of non-suppressors in depressed patients were 62.5%. This data indicate that depressed patients have dysfunction of larger magnitude in feedback mechanism within HPA axis.Moreover, these depressed patients were estimated cerebral glucose metabolism. Hypometabolism mainly in left frontal cortex and hypermetabolism in limbic system were observed in depressive state as compared with healthy volunteers (mean age 45.2±8.0). Thus, we can observe neuroendocrine dysfunction and changes in brain glucose metabolism, which were supposed to be involved in pathophisiology underlying mood disorders.