Purpose

Patients affected with multiple sclerosis suffer from depression more frequently than the general population. Beyond psychosocial, genetic and immune-inflammatory factors, also the brain damage which is peculiar of multiple sclerosis has been claimed to have a role in the aetiology of depression in those patients. The study of this interesting relation has been implemented with both conventional and advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques. The aim of this review is to provide a historical perspective on the link between multiple sclerosis-related depression and structural and functional brain damage.

Methods

In this review, the results of the MRI studies regarding multiple sclerosis-related brain damage and the presence of depression are presented.

Results

The findings of the reports reveal a link between brain pathology and depressive symptoms or the diagnosis of depression in multiple sclerosis.

Conclusions

Although a multifactorial aetiology has been theorized for depression and depressive symptoms in patients with multiple sclerosis, this review supports the hypothesis that the structural and functional brain impairment might substantially be amongst those factors. Thus, depression itself might be a symptom with a neuro-biological basis and not only the consequence of the disability derived from the neurological impairment.

中文翻译：

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多发性硬化症的影像学和抑郁症的历史研究

目的

多发性硬化症患者比普通人群患抑郁症的频率更高。除了社会心理，遗传和免疫炎症因素外，据称多发性硬化症特有的脑损伤在这些患者的抑郁症病因中也有作用。对这种有趣关系的研究已经通过常规和高级磁共振成像技术进行了。这篇综述的目的是就多发性硬化症相关的抑郁症与脑部结构和功能损害之间的联系提供历史观点。

方法

在这篇综述中，提出了有关多发性硬化症相关性脑损伤和抑郁症的MRI研究结果。

结果

报告的发现揭示了脑病理学与抑郁症状或多发性硬化症的抑郁症诊断之间的联系。

结论

尽管已经针对多发性硬化症患者的抑郁和抑郁症状建立了多因素病因学理论，但该评价支持以下假设：大脑的结构和功能障碍可能实质上是这些因素之一。因此，抑郁症本身可能是神经生物学基础的症状，而不仅仅是神经损伤引起的残疾的结果。