Experiencing stressful events throughout one's life, particularly childhood trauma, increases the likelihood of being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Raised levels of cortisol, and markers of inflammation such as Interleukin (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP), have been linked to both early life stress and MDD. We aimed to explore the biological stress signatures of early stress and MDD on hippocampal sub regional volumes using 7 Tesla MRI imaging. A cohort of 71 MDD patients was compared against 46 age and sex-matched healthy volunteers. MDD subjects had higher averages of IL-6 and CRP levels. These differences were significant for IL-6 levels and trended for CRP. There were no significant group differences in any of the hippocampal subfields or global hippocampal volumes; further, there were no hippocampal subfield differences between MDD subjects with high levels of our biological stress measures and MDDs with normal levels.

中文翻译：

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抑郁症中的压力，炎症和海马亚区：7 Tesla MRI研究。

经历一生的压力事件，尤其是儿童期的创伤，会增加被诊断出患有严重抑郁症（MDD）的可能性。皮质醇水平的升高以及炎症标志物，如白介素（IL-6）和C反应蛋白（CRP），都与早期生活压力和MDD相关。我们旨在使用7 Tesla MRI成像探索海马亚区域体积上早期应激和MDD的生物应激特征。比较了71名MDD患者和46名年龄和性别相匹配的健康志愿者。MDD受试者的IL-6和CRP水平平均值较高。这些差异对IL-6水平有显着影响，而对CRP有趋势。在任何海马亚区或整体海马体积中均没有显着的群体差异；进一步，