Attenuation of the Neural Response to Sad Faces in Major Depressionby Antidepressant Treatment

Fu, Cynthia H.Y.; Williams, Steven; Cleare, Anthony J.; Brammer, Michael; Walsh, Nicholas D.; Kim, Jieun; Andrew, Chris; Pich, Emilio Merlo; Williams, Pauline; Reed, Laurence; Mitterschiffthaler, Martina; Suckling, John; Bullmore, Edward T.

doi:10.1001/archpsyc.61.9.877

Cited by 735 publications

(650 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…Hence, even in case of significant group differences it could not have been concluded whether any observed group effect was due to depression or a confounding effect of medication. Nonetheless, our data are in line with the findings of Sheline et al (2001) and Fu et al (2004). These previous studies found no differences between medicated patients and healthy controls with respect to their amygdala reactivity to emotional faces.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

5-HTTLPR Biases Amygdala Activity in Response to Masked Facial Expressions in Major Depression

Dannlowski

Ohrmann

Bauer

et al. 2007

Neuropsychopharmacol

163

108

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The amygdala is a key structure in a limbic circuit involved in the rapid and unconscious processing of facial emotions. Increased amygdala reactivity has been discussed in the context of major depression. Recent studies reported that amygdala activity during conscious emotion processing is modulated by a functional polymorphism in the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR) in healthy subjects. In the present study, amygdala reactivity to displays of emotional faces was measured by means of fMRI at 3T in 35 patients with major depression and 32 healthy controls. Conscious awareness of the emotional stimuli was prevented via backward-masking to investigate automatic emotion processing. All subjects were genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR polymorphism. Risk allele carriers (S or L G ) demonstrated increased amygdala reactivity to masked emotional faces, which in turn was significantly correlated with life-time psychiatric hospitalization as an index of chronicity. This might indicate that genetic variations of the serotonin transporter could increase the risk for depression chronification via altering limbic neural activity on a preattentive level of emotion processing.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

5-HTTLPR Biases Amygdala Activity in Response to Masked Facial Expressions in Major Depression

Dannlowski

Ohrmann

Bauer

et al. 2007

Neuropsychopharmacol

163

108

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…This finding was explained in terms of a stronger sensitivity of brain areas involved in the processing of fear stimuli in individuals with a high BIS score, which is possibly mediated by the 5-HT system. The finding that especially the amygdala is responsive to serotonergic manipulations is in line with a number of previous studies reporting modified amygdala responses as a result of 5-HT manipulations (eg Sheline et al, 2001;Fu et al, 2004;Del-Ben et al, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…ATD generally increased right amygdala activation in the contrast comparing all stimulus events of the TRPÀ condition with all stimulus events in the TRP + condition. The effects of ATD on amygdala activation are in line with findings of several other studies reporting sensitivity of the amygdala to serotonergic manipulations (eg Sheline et al, 2001;Fu et al, 2004;Del-Ben et al, 2005). These findings are also in line with studies reporting an enhanced amygdala response to fearful stimuli in carriers of the short allele variant of a polymorphism in the promoter region of the 5-HT transporter gene (eg Hariri et al, 2002), who are characterized by a lowered 5-HT metabolism.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Effects of Acute Tryptophan Depletion on Mood and Facial Emotion Perception Related Brain Activation and Performance in Healthy Women with and without a Family History of Depression

Veen

Evers

Deutz

et al. 2006

Neuropsychopharmacol

106

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The present study examined the effects of acute tryptophan (Trp) depletion (ATD), a well-recognized method to lower central serotonin (5-HT) metabolism, on brain activation during a facial emotion perception task. Brain activation was measured using fMRI, and healthy female volunteers with a positive family history of unipolar depression (FH + ) were compared to healthy female volunteers without such a history (FHÀ). Participants viewed two morphed faces and were instructed to choose between the faces based either on the intensity of the emotional expression (direct task) or the gender of the face (incidental task). In the FH + group, depletion led to the expected lowering of mood, which partly determined the effect of depletion on performance and brain activation. A stronger mood lowering effect was associated with less accurate performance on faces expressing a negative emotion in the incidental task and a stronger right amygdala response to fearful faces in comparison to happy faces. These results were explained in terms of a mood-induced bias leading to a stronger impact of the expressed negative emotion which subsequently leads to more interference in the incidental task and a stronger amygdala response. It was concluded that the effects of ATD on mood, performance, and brain activation in a facial emotion perception task depend on family history of depression. Performance and brain activation partly depend on the effect of ATD on mood.

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“…Unlike other studies that reported significantly stronger activation to negative emotional stimuli in the emotional system in MDD (Sheline et al, 2001, Siegle et al, 2002, Fu et al, 2004, Canli et al, 2005, Siegle et al, 2006, the MDD group only showed increased activation than the control group using a less stringent statistical threshold (p < .05 uncorrected, spatial extent of 5 voxels) in the emotional system including the left IFG (BA 47), hypothalamus, inferior temporal gyrus as well as right uncus, ventral basal ganglia, and ventral extrastriate cortex. We further investigated whether antidepressant medication weakened the activation to emotional stimuli in the MDD group.…”

Section: Fmri Resultscontrasting

confidence: 80%

Prefrontal mechanisms for executive control over emotional distraction are altered in major depression

Wang

LaBar

Smoski

et al. 2008

Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging

182

140

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A dysfunction in the interaction between executive function and mood regulation has been proposed as the pathophysiology of depression. However few studies have investigated the alteration in brain systems related to executive control over emotional distraction in depression. To address this issue, 19 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 healthy controls were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants performed an emotional oddball task in which infrequently presented circle targets required detection while sad and neutral pictures were irrelevant novel distractors. Hemodynamic responses were compared for targets, sad distractors, and for targets that followed sad or neutral distractors (Target-after-Sad and Target-after-Neutral). Patients with MDD revealed attenuated activation overall to targets in executive brain regions. MDD patients were also slower behaviorally in response to Target-after-Sad than Target-after-Neutral. Patients also revealed a reversed activation pattern from controls in the left anterior cingulate, insula, right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and bilateral middle frontal gyrus. Those patients who engaged the right IFG more during Target-after-Sad than Target-after-Neutral responded faster to targets, confirming a role of this region in coping with emotional distraction. The results provide direct evidence of the alteration in neural systems that interplay cognition with mood in MDD. (198 words) Keywords event-related fMRI; interaction of executive function and emotion; anterior cingulate cortex; inferior frontal cortex

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Attenuation of the Neural Response to Sad Faces in Major Depressionby Antidepressant Treatment

Cited by 735 publications

References 88 publications

5-HTTLPR Biases Amygdala Activity in Response to Masked Facial Expressions in Major Depression

5-HTTLPR Biases Amygdala Activity in Response to Masked Facial Expressions in Major Depression

Effects of Acute Tryptophan Depletion on Mood and Facial Emotion Perception Related Brain Activation and Performance in Healthy Women with and without a Family History of Depression

Prefrontal mechanisms for executive control over emotional distraction are altered in major depression

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