Multi-scale neural signatures of major depressive, anxiety, and stress-related disorders

Abstract

The extent of shared and distinct neural mechanisms underlying major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety and stress-related disorders is still unclear. We compared the neural signatures of these disorders in 5,405 UK Biobank patients and 21,727 healthy controls. We found the greatest case-control differences in resting-state functional connectivity and cortical thickness in MDD, followed by anxiety and stress-related disorders. Neural signatures for MDD and anxiety disorders were highly concordant, namely in altered frontostriatal connectivity, whereas stress-related disorders showed a distinct pattern. Controlling for cross-disorder genetic risk somewhat increased the similarity between functional neural signatures of stress-related disorders and both MDD and anxiety disorders. Among cases and healthy controls, reduced within-network and increased between-network frontoparietal and default mode connectivity was associated with poorer cognitive performance (processing speed, attention, associative learning and fluid intelligence). These results provide evidence for distinct neural circuit function impairments in MDD and anxiety disorders compared to stress disorders; yet cognitive impairment appears unrelated to diagnosis and varies with circuit function.