Correlation of within-individual fluctuation of depressed mood with prefrontal cortex activity during verbal working memory task: optical topography study

Abstract

Abstract. Previous studies showed that interindividual variations in mood state are associated with prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. In this study, we focused on the depressed-mood state under natural circumstances and examined the relationship between within-individual changes over time in this mood state and PFC activity. We used optical topography (OT), a functional imaging technique based on near-infrared spectroscopy, to measure PFC activity for each participant in three experimental sessions repeated at 2-week intervals. In each session, the participants completed a self-report questionnaire of mood state and underwent OT measurement while performing verbal and spatial working memory (WM) tasks. The results showed that changes in the depressed-mood score between successive sessions were negatively correlated with those in the left PFC activation for the verbal WM task (ρ = − 0.56, p < 0.05). In contrast, the PFC activation for the spatial WM task did not co-vary with participants' mood changes. We thus demonstrated that PFC activity during a verbal WM task varies depending on the participant's depressed mood state, independent of trait factors. This suggests that using optical topography to measure PFC activity during a verbal WM task can be used as a potential state marker for an individual's depressed mood state. C 2011 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).

Replication of the correlation between natural mood states and working memory-related prefrontal activity measured by near-infrared spectroscopy in a German sample

“…To better understand the mood–cognition interaction in the PFC, we previously introduced a new approach which focused on the natural mood state in healthy participants without using a mood-induction method (Aoki et al, 2011, 2013; Sato et al, 2011). In these studies, a psychological questionnaire (Profiles of Mood States, POMS) (McNair et al, 1971; Yokoyama et al, 1990) was administered to assess the participants' natural moods during the past week, and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS)—a non-invasive and less body-constraint neuroimaging technique (Maki et al, 1995; Koizumi et al, 2005; Ehlis et al, 2014)—was used to measure their PFC activity during an emotionally-neutral delayed match-to-sample verbal/spatial WM paradigm (Smith et al, 1996).…”

Mental stress assessment using simultaneous measurement of EEG and fNIRS

“…These aforementioned tasks are used in brain-computer interface (BCI) and attention studies [44][45][46][47][48]. More recently, fNIRS has been accepted as an assistive tool to differentiate depression, bipolar and schizophrenia [49,50].…”

Local contextual processing in major depressive disorder

“…However, in contrast to the MDD patients, schizophrenia and prefrontal-lesioned patients showed pronounced attenuation of the P3b latency shift and the differential processing between the two target conditions, demonstrating an impaired ability to utilize predictive local context (Fogelson et al, 2009a(Fogelson et al, , 2011b. There is evidence for the role of the prefrontal cortex and prefrontal networks in depression (Bench et al, 1992;Pascual-Leone et al, 1996), and prefrontal network dysfunction in depressed patients has been associated with working memory deficits (Pu et al, 2011;Sato et al, 2011;Price and Drevets, 2012). Thus, it is likely that the deficits in processing local contextual information observed in the MDD patients in the present study may also be related to prefrontal or prefrontal network dysfunction.…”

“…Performance on measures of executive function tend to be impaired in depressed patients, and working memory deficits are common (Pelosi et al, 2000;Rose and Ebmeier, 2006;Segrave et al, 2010;Marazziti et al, 2010;Sato et al, 2011) and associated with impairments in attentional control (Pelosi et al, 2000;Rose and Ebmeier, 2006;Segrave et al, 2010;Gotlib and Joormann, 2010;Murrough et al, 2011). However, other studies have demonstrated that there are no impairments in working memory functions in patients with depression (Barch et al, 2003;Holmes et al, 2005).…”