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

应用地塞米松/促肾上腺皮质激素释放激素激发试验（DEX/CRH）检测16例心境障碍患者（平均年龄61.7±14.4岁）的下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺皮质（HPA）轴功能。抑郁症患者中无抑制者占62.5%。提示抑郁症患者HPA轴反馈机制存在较大程度的功能障碍。与健康志愿者（平均年龄45.2±8.0岁）相比，抑郁状态主要表现为左额叶皮质代谢降低，边缘系统代谢增高。因此，我们可以观察到神经内分泌功能障碍和脑葡萄糖代谢的变化，这被认为是参与病理生理学的基础情绪障碍。

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.