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Abstract #3558

A Framework for Causal Connectivity Analysis of fMRI in Patient Populations: An Application to Major Depression and Early Life Stress

Karthik Ramakrishnan Sreenivasan1, Merida M. Grant2, Gopikrishna Deshpande, 3

1 AU MRI Research Center, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States; 2Department of Psychiatry, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, AL, United States; 3Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, United States


The current study investigated effective connectivity in patients with Major depressive disorder (MDD). fMRI time series were deconvolved using a cubature Kalman filter to obtain underlying neural response which were input into a dynamic multivariate autoregressive model (dMVAR) to obtain effective connectivity metrics. The results showed that differential amygdala reactivity within MDD based on early life stress history was associated with failure of inhibition from medial or lateral PFC.