Clinical Value of Functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy in Auxiliary Assessment of Cognitive Impairment in Patients with Depressive Disorder

DUAN Huifeng; ZHU Xiquan; JIANG Yupeng; FAN Liangliang; LIU Yuxuan; LIANG Xuejun

doi:10.13730/j.issn.2097-2148.2025.03.009

Abstract：Objective To investigate the characteristics of functional near-infrared spectroscopy(fNIRS)in patients with depressive disorder with and without cognitive impairment,and to explore the clinical value of fNIRS in assisting the assessment of cognitive impairment.Methods A total of 70 patients with depressive disorder were collected and divided into two groups according to whether they were accompanied by cognitive impairment,among which,there were 8 cases dropped out because they did not cooperate fNIRS,the patients with depressive disorder accompanied by cognitive impairment were selected as the study group(n=32),depressive disorder patients without cognitive impairment served as the control group(n=30).The Hamilton depression scale 17(HAMD-17)and Montreal cognitive assessment(MoCA)scale were used to assess mood and cog-nitive status of the patients,fNIRS technology was employed to detect the prefrontal lobe integral value,centroid value and slope value of the two groups during the verbal fluency test(VFT),and its correlation with cognitive impairment was compared.Results ① There was a statistically significant difference in the cognitive impairment factor score of HAMD-17 and the total score of MoCA scale of patients between two groups(all P＜0.001).② Compared with control group,the prefrontal lobe integral value of patients in the study group was lower,the centroid value was larger and the slope value was smaller,with statistically significant differences(all P＜0.01).@Correlation analysis showed that the cognitive impairment factor score of HAMD-17 was negatively correlated with the prefrontal lobe integral value and slope value,while positively correlated with the centroid value(r=-0.462,-0.520,0.397,respectively,all P＜0.05);whereas the total score of MoCA scale was positively correlated with the prefrontal lobe integral value and slope value,while nega-tively correlated with the centroid value(r=0.518,0.506,-0.522,respectively,all P＜0.01).Conclusion Patients with depressive disorders and cognitive impairment exhibit characteristic fNIRS spectra,which can be used for risk predic-tion,auxiliary diagnosis and efficacy assessment of cognitive impairment in depressive disorders.