Table 3.
Relation between free water-corrected mean diffusivity and free water values of meso-cortical and meso-limbic pathways and preserved PCA components
| PC1 | ||
|---|---|---|
| β (SE) | P-corrected | |
| Free water-corrected mean diffusivity | ||
| VTA-dlPFC | −0.13 (0.09) | 0.993 |
| VTA-mOFC | −0.04 (0.09) | 1.000 |
| VTA-vlPFC | 0.04 (0.10) | 1.000 |
| VTA-ACC | 0.04 (0.09) | 1.000 |
| VTA-NAc | 0.12 (0.09) | 1.000 |
| Free water | ||
| VTA-dlPFC | 0.37 (0.09) | 0.001 |
| VTA-mOFC | 0.40 (0.14) | 0.034 |
| VTA-vlPFC | 0.64 (0.14) | <0.001 |
| VTA-ACC | 0.51 (0.13) | <0.001 |
| VTA-NAc | 0.13 (0.10) | 1.000 |
Meso-cortical pathways include the ventral tegmental area (VTA)-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), VTA-medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) and VTA-ventral lateral PFC (vlPFC) tracts; the meso-limbic pathway is referred to as the VTA-nucleus accumbens (NAc) tract. All models were adjusted for age, sex, education years, modified Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD) score, the corresponding diffusion measures of white matter reference regions, cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) MRI markers and normalized brain volumes. β-Values are reported as the standardized β-values and standard error (SE). P-values were corrected using the Bonferroni method; P-corrected values in bold represent < 0.05. PCA = principal component analysis; PC1 = principal component 1.