Elderly depression diagnostic of diabetic patients by brain tissue pulsatility imaging

Pulsatile motion of brain parenchyma results from cardiac and breathing cycles and consists in a rapid displacement in systole, with slow diastolic recovery. Based on the vascular depression concept and recent studies where a correlation was found between cerebral haemodynamics and depression in the elderly, we emitted the hypothesis that tissue brain motion due to perfusion is correlated to elderly depression associated with cardiovascular risk factors. Tissue Pulsatlity Imaging (TPI) is a new ultrasound technique developed firstly at the University of Washington to assess the brain tissue motion. We used TPI technique to measure the brain displacement of two groups of elderly patients with diabetes as a vascular risk factor. The first group is composed of 11 depressed diabetic patients. The second group is composed of 12 diabetic patients without depressive symptoms. Transcranial acquisitions were performed with a 1.8 MHz ultrasound phased array probe through the right temporal bone window. The acquisition of six cardiac cycles was realized on each patient with a frame rate of 23 frames/s. Displacements estimation was performed by off-line analysis. A significant decrease in brain pulsatility was observed in the group of depressed patients compared to the group of non depressed patients. Mean displacement magnitude was about 44±7 μm in the first group and 68±13 μm in the second group.