Liu X, Liu C, Pu YZ, Liu D, Liu HS, Xiang DF, Zhang XY, Wang XY, Yang QX, Jin R, Yu RQ. Significance of arterial spin labeling in relation to sertraline treatment response in adolescents with major depressive disorder. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(3): 114719 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i3.114719]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ren-Qiang Yu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, No. 1 Youyi Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400016, China. yurenqiang@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn
Research Domain of This Article
Neuroimaging
Article-Type of This Article
Observational Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Mar 19, 2026 (publication date) through Feb 27, 2026
Times Cited of This Article
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Journal Information of This Article
Publication Name
World Journal of Psychiatry
ISSN
2220-3206
Publisher of This Article
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
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Liu X, Liu C, Pu YZ, Liu D, Liu HS, Xiang DF, Zhang XY, Wang XY, Yang QX, Jin R, Yu RQ. Significance of arterial spin labeling in relation to sertraline treatment response in adolescents with major depressive disorder. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(3): 114719 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v16.i3.114719]
Xiao Liu, Chuan Liu, Xing-Yu Wang, Rui Jin, Ren-Qiang Yu, Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
Yun-Zhen Pu, Dan Liu, Hong-Sheng Liu, Dan-Feng Xiang, Xiao-Yue Zhang, Department of Medical Imaging Technology, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China
Qian-Xi Yang, One Direction Academy High School, Toronto M3B 2T5, Canada
Co-first authors: Xiao Liu and Chuan Liu.
Co-corresponding authors: Rui Jin and Ren-Qiang Yu.
Author contributions: Liu X and Liu C contributed to the work equally and are co-first authors of this manuscript; Liu X and Liu C contributed to writing the original draft; Liu X, Liu C, and Zhang XY contributed to collection and analysis of scanning magnetic resonance imaging data; Pu YZ, Liu D, Liu HS, Xiang DF, and Zhang XY contributed to conceptualization and checking the data; Wang XY and Yang QX contributed to investigation; Yu RQ analyzed the data; Yu RQ and Jin R contributed to methodology, and writing review and writing editing, and they contributed to the work equally to this article and are co-corresponding authors. All authors approved the submitted version.
Supported by the “Medicine + X” Program of Chongqing Translational Medicine Center, No. Y+X202409.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Approval No. 2020-779.
Informed consent statement: All study participants’ legal guardians provided written informed consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, and dataset available from the corresponding author at yurenqiang@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn.
Corresponding author: Ren-Qiang Yu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, No. 1 Youyi Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing 400016, China. yurenqiang@hospital.cqmu.edu.cn
Received: September 30, 2025 Revised: November 18, 2025 Accepted: December 15, 2025 Published online: March 19, 2026 Processing time: 153 Days and 6.9 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Adolescent major depressive disorder is a global concern with limited treatment efficacy. This study used arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate cerebral blood flow changes during sertraline treatment and to examine whether baseline perfusion was associated with subsequent response. Thirty-three adolescents with adolescent major depressive disorder were assessed before and after eight weeks of treatment. A significant reduction in depressive symptoms was observed over eight weeks, and responders showed higher baseline cerebral blood flow in the right insula. These exploratory findings suggest that insular perfusion may index treatment-relevant states, but do not establish causality or predictive utility; confirmation in randomized, placebo or psychotherapy-controlled trials is required before informing clinical decision-making.
