en Midwifery and Reproductive Health Original Research Original Research <font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt text-align: justify unicode-bidi: embed direction: ltr"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><b>Background:</b> Major depression is a common disorder with great social and individual burdens. Transcranial sonography (TCS) is a useful and noninvasive measure for assessment of normal and impaired brain parenchyma. The brainstem raphe nuclei are in close association with dorsocaudal limbic system and plays an important role in depression. In this study we compared the echogenicity of the raphe nuclei in patients with major depressive disorder and the control group.</font></font></p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt text-align: justify unicode-bidi: embed direction: ltr"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><b>Methods: </b>Thirty patients suffering from depression, diagnosed by a psychiatrist, and 30 cases of similar age and sex were entered into the case and control groups respectively. Semi-structural clinical conversation was done according to the DSM IV-TR in order to confirm the depression by the psychiatrist member of the group. Echogenicity of the brainstem raphe nuclei was assessed by a trained neurologist using TCS. To compare the mean echogenicity between the two groups independent sample t-test was used. In order to assess the strength of association between the disease and the echogenicity, odds ratio was also calculated.</font></font></p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt text-align: justify unicode-bidi: embed direction: ltr"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><b>Results:</b> The echogenicity of the brainstem raphe nuclei was significantly decreased in depressed patients (36.7%) in comparison with the control group (10% ) (p= 0.015, OR= 5.21).</font></font></p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font><p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt text-align: justify unicode-bidi: embed direction: ltr"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3"><b>Conclusion:</b> Echogenicity of the brainstem raphe nuclei in patients with depression is significantly lower than normal population. To confirm the results, we recommend a meta analysis considering previous articles' results.</font></font></p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font> Major depressive disorder, Transcranial sonography (TCS), Raphe nuclei echogenicity. 60 64 http://mjiri.iums.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1-614&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Shadi Ghourchian shadighurchian@gmail.com 200319475328460013013 200319475328460013013 Yes Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Babak Zamani zamba3@yahoo.com 200319475328460013014 200319475328460013014 No Department of Neurology, Rasoul-e-Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Kosar Poorkosary md_kosary@yahoo.com 200319475328460013015 200319475328460013015 No Ardekan, Iran. Seyed Kazem Malakouti malakoutik@gmail.com 200319475328460013016 200319475328460013016 No Department of Psychiatry, Rasoul-e-Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Mohammad Rohani mohammadroohani@gmail.com 200319475328460013017 200319475328460013017 No Department of Neurology, Rasoul-e-Akram Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.l