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• Clinical Articles •
Study on effective connectivity characteristics of brain in youth with subthreshold depression based on rs-fMRI and spectral dynamic causal modeling
LIU Tonghui  ZHANG Fan  LI Guoqiang  FENG Wei  LI Peng  ZHANG Huawen 

Cite this article as LIU T H, ZHANG F, LI G Q, et al. Study on effective connectivity characteristics of brain in youth with subthreshold depression based on rs-fMRI and spectral dynamic causal modeling[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(8): 42-47, 63. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.08.003.


[Abstract] Objective To investigate the characteristics of effective connectivity in youth with subthreshold depression (SD) and reveal its early neuropathological mechanism based on resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) and spectral dynamic causal modeling (spDCM).Materials and Methods Fifty-two participants with SD (SD group) and 51 healthy controls (HC group) aged 15-24 years were enrolled. After preprocessing all rs-fMRI data, we selected the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (lDLPFC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) as regions of interest. Effective connectivity (EC) differences were analyzed using spDCM and parametric empirical Bayes (PEB). Correlation analyses were performed between interregional effective connectivity values and clinical scale scores in the SD group.Results In both groups, bilateral DLPFC exerted inhibitory connectivity toward mPFC and PCC (EC range: -0.435 to -0.200, Pp > 0.95). The mPFC exhibited excitatory connectivity to rDLPFC (EC = 0.075, Pp > 0.95), and bidirectional excitatory connectivity was observed between lDLPFC and rDLPFC (EC range: 0.206 to 0.256, Pp > 0.95). Compared with the HC group, the SD group exhibited decreased inhibitory effective connectivity from rDLPFC to mPFC (EC = 0.118, Pp > 0.95). No significant correlations were observed between interregional connectivity strengths in the SD group and scores of the 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-24) as well as the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) (r range: -0.215 to 0.254, all P > 0.05).Conclusions Youth with SD exhibit reduced inhibitory effective connectivity from rDLPFC to mPFC, suggesting that reduced inhibitory control of mPFC by rDLPFC is a concomitant neuroimaging feature of early SD, which can be used as an imaging reference to reflect brain functional alterations in SD.
[Keywords] youth；subthreshold depression；magnetic resonance imaging；resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging；spectral dynamic causal modeling

LIU Tonghui1   ZHANG Fan2   LI Guoqiang1   FENG Wei1   LI Peng1   ZHANG Huawen1*  

1 Department of Medical Imaging, No. 215 Hospital of Shaanxi Nuclear industry, Xianyang 712000, China

2 Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, No. 215 Hospital of Shaanxi Nuclear industry, Xianyang 712000, China

Corresponding author: ZHANG H W, E-mail: 1579226281@qq.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2026-05-18
Accepted  2026-07-13
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.08.003
Cite this article as LIU T H, ZHANG F, LI G Q, et al. Study on effective connectivity characteristics of brain in youth with subthreshold depression based on rs-fMRI and spectral dynamic causal modeling[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2026, 17(8): 42-47, 63. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2026.08.003.

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