Archival ReportReduced Density of Calbindin Immunoreactive GABAergic Neurons in the Occipital Cortex in Major Depression: Relevance to Neuroimaging Studies
Section snippets
Human Subjects
Postmortem brain samples were collected at autopsy at the Cuyahoga County Coroner's Office in Cleveland, Ohio, from 20 subjects. Informed written consent was obtained from the legal next-of-kin of all subjects. Next-of-kin were interviewed and retrospective psychiatric assessments were conducted in accordance with Institutional Review Board policies, as described previously (12). Ten subjects met clinical criteria for MDD, and the other 10 subjects (termed normal control subjects) did not meet
Results
The density of CB-IR neurons was significantly reduced by 28% in the MDD subjects (21.2 ± 2.7 neurons × 103/mm3) compared with the age-matched control group [29.5 ± 2.2 neurons × 103/mm3; ANCOVA, F(1,14) = 7.58, p = .016] (Figure 1, Figure 2). The reduced density in MDD subjects does not appear to be specifically related to death by suicide because there was almost no difference in the mean density of CB-IR neurons between the six MDD suicide (20.8 ± 3.0 neurons × 103/mm3) and four MDD
Discussion
The present study demonstrates marked (28%) reductions in the density of CB-IR neurons in layer II of the occipital cortex in MDD subjects compared with control subjects. However, the size of CB-IR neurons was not significantly different between the two groups. All (but one) of our MDD subjects were free of antidepressants at the time of death as revealed by postmortem toxicology screening, suggesting this was largely a medication-free population. This deficit in GABA neurons is consistent with
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