Jasmine Pearson

• Msci Biomedical Sciences
• Analysis of functional connectivity in human brains, comparing patients with varying degrees of major depression to healthy controls

Major depression is a depressive disorder characterised predominantly by low mood, among other symptoms. Currently, major depression is diagnosed based on timescales of symptoms, which may make distinguishing separate depressive disorders difficult.

The aim of this research project was to further prove differences in functional connectivity documented by other researchers, using larger sample sizes, in hopes that these differences may be used as diagnostic tools in personalised medicine.

The findings of my research showed no significant differences in several parameters of functional connectivity, including strength and path length of functional connections, between the brains of healthy controls and several severities of depressed patients. These results, however, do not mean there are no differences to be found. Restricted access to UK Biobank meant mean values of whole brain datasets had to be used, while there may have been differences in specific brain regions that were masked by the use of averages.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisor: Prof. Marcus Kaiser