Many survivors of stroke are afflicted with physical and mental impairments that significantly affect daily life. However, the onset of depressive symptoms is one of the least understood issues post-stroke because it occurs independent of other impairments that may affect quality of life, implying an underlying physiological phenomenon influencing the onset of these symptoms. In order to investigate the possible stroke lesion characteristics that predict depressive symptoms, a thorough analysis of over 90 patients’ brain magnetic resonance images following a stroke was conducted.

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The analysis involved several key steps such as evaluating confounding factors and comorbidities, systematically segmenting 3-D stroke lesions, normalizing images to a common space, and compiling the data and determining regions of interest with statistical significance. The team succeeded in accomplishing all of these tasks, with a few potential regions of the brain identified as candidates for future analysis to explain the underlying biological mechanisms that lead to the onset of depressive symptoms in stroke survivors.