CEST MRI of Regional Molecular Changes in the Brain for Depression Assessment

Motivation: Revealing molecular alterations in the brain can provide a better assessment of depression and can benefit treatment planning. Goal(s): Our findings would serve as potential biomarkers for the assessment of depression. Approach: Here we applied CEST to study the regional brain changes in a depression model. Results: CEST, with multi-parametric readout, showed significant changes at the cortex and thalamus, which attributed to the alterations in molecular content and the exchange rate (P<0.05). Additionally, we observed that female mice tended to have higher CEST signals than male mice in the hippocampus and thalamus under depression (P<0.05). Impact: The molecular findings here can provide valuable information for the development of CEST in psychiatry. CEST is non-invasive and non-contrast-enhanced, which can be translated to the clinical level for better diagnosis and treatment planning for depression.