Relationship between the prefrontal function and the severity of the emotional symptoms during a verbal fluency task in patients with major depressive disorder: A multi-channel NIRS study

Multi-channel near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a noninvasive and low-cost functional neuroimaging technique in psychiatric research, and it has been wildly used for detecting the spatiotemporal characteristics of brain activity. In order to evaluate the clinical value of NIRS data in the assistant diagnosis of major depressive disorder (MDD), prefrontal cortex (PFC) hemoglobin concentration exchange of 30 MDD patients combined with anxious and obsessive–compulsive symptom was detected by NIRS under voice fluency task (VFT), then the relationship between the severity of depressive, anxious and obsessive–compulsive symptom assessed by Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) and Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) with NIRS data in PFC was analyzed. Hypoactivation in lateral and lower PFC of MDD patients was confirmed in this study. Furthermore, Spearman correlation found that oxy-hemoglobin concentration ([oxy-Hb]) exchange in right-lateral PFC was associated with the severity of anxiety, while bilateral PFC and antero-medial PFC were associated with severity of depression. Meanwhile, no statistical correlation was observed on the severity of obsessive–compulsive symptom. The results prompted that MDD patients with anxiety and obsession–compulsion symptom showed a PFC hypoactivation state in NIRS. Furthermore, the function of right-lateral PFC was associated with anxiety symptom, while bilateral PFC and antero-medial PFC were associated with depression symptom. Different from depression and anxiety, obsession–compulsion may have a different biological character in PFC function. Correlation between changes of oxy-hemoglobin concentration in prefrontal cortex detected by near-infrared spectroscopy with severity of depressive, anxious and obsessive–compulsive symptoms in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) [Display omitted] •Hypoactivation in prefrontal cortex of major depressive disorder (MDD) patients with anxious and obsessive-compulsive symptoms was confirmed.•Oxy-hemoglobin concentration changes in right dorsolateral PFC were associated with the severity of anxiety in MDD patients, while changes in bilateral PFC and antero-medial PFC were associated with severity of depression.•No statistical correlation between oxy-hemoglobin concentration changes in PFC and the severity of obsessive-compulsive symptom was observed.