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Brain Markers of Depression Vulnerability: the Case of Prefrontal Haemodynamic Response

NCT05427578 · Status: COMPLETED · Type: OBSERVATIONAL · Enrollment: 90

Last updated 2025-12-11

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) offers a cheap and reliable tool to investigate prefrontal brain activation in the healthy and diseased human brain. As such, fNIRS bears great potential as a diagnostic tool for clinical practice. Research indicates that fNIRS, together with a relatively simple task to activate the prefrontal cortex, the so-called verbal fluency task (VFT), elucidates prefrontal dysfunction in major depressive disorder (MDD). This finding can potentially serve as an imaging marker for disease pathology, even when depressive symptoms are absent. Indeed, recent research also suggests prefrontal dysfunction in fully remitted MDD (rMDD). Prefrontal haemodynamic responses may therefore serve as a trait marker for MDD vulnerability.

This study aims to investigate the haemodynamic response in rMDD, healthy participants with increased MDD risk (HCr; having a 1st-degree relative with MDD), and low-risk healthy participants (HCnr; having no 1st-degree relatives with MDD) using fNIRS. The investigators hypothesize lower prefrontal reactivity in HCr compared to HCnr, and lowest prefrontal reactivity in rMDD compared to HCnr.

This study has the potential to elucidate the neuronal underpinnings of depression vulnerability in the absence of symptoms that are sometimes considered a confounding factor when it comes to studying the biological encoding of depression.

Conditions

Interventions

OTHER

fNIRS measurement

measurement using functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Dr Georg Kranz

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Georg S Kranz, PhD · The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Max Age
35 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2021-08-01
Primary Completion
2024-11-29
Completion
2024-11-29

Countries

  • Hong Kong

Study Locations

More Related Trials

Entities

Diseases

Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT05427578 on ClinicalTrials.gov