Frontolimbic responses to emotional faces in young people at familial risk of depression

Prefrontal brain responsiveness to negative stimuli

“…These findings were confirmed by a study reporting reduced DLPFC activation in individuals at familial risk for MDD during presentation of fearful faces. 8 A study by Lévesque and colleagues 9 reported associations between more severe depressive symptomatology in parents and higher activation levels in the insula and the cingulate cortex in their corresponding offspring. Although the notion of overactivation in the cingulate cortex during emotion processing associated with familial risk for MDD was corroborated by Lisiecka and colleagues, 10 a more recent study showed deactivation of the subgenual cingulate cortex associated with future diagnosis of MDD in high-risk individuals.…”

Recruitment of orbitofrontal cortex during unpredictable threat among adults at risk for affective disorders

“…In this study, we tested the hypothesis that otherwise medically and psychiatrically healthy adults at risk for affective disorders by virtue of The heightened mOFC responses to threat in HR individuals in part replicate findings from other neuroimaging studies with at-risk children and adolescents, as well as patient populations, which have found dysfunction in prefrontal structures in response to aversive stimuli and negative moods (Chai et al, 2015;Gotlib et al, 2010;Mannie et al, 2008Mannie et al, , 2011McCabe et al, 2012). Evidence in primates and humans indicates that, as a result of its significant reciprocal projections with subcortical structures, the OFC sends information about threat probability and the related costs to the amygdala, BNST, and nucleus accumbens, which in turn modulate fear and anxiety responses, including freezing (Kalin, Shelton, & Davidson, 2007;Kalin, Shelton, Fox, Oakes, & Davidson, 2005;Motzkin et al, 2015).…”

“…Increased amygdala responses during negative moods (Joormann et al, 2012) and to fearful faces (Chai et al, 2015;Monk et al, 2008) have been observed in HR adolescents relative to controls, although no differences to fearful faces have also been reported (Mannie et al, 2011). Temperamentally inhibited children fail to engage the mPFC and ACC during anticipation of threat (Clauss, Benningfield, Rao, & Blackford, 2016), while young adults who self-identify as temperamentally inhibited show greater hemodynamic responses in dlPFC and dorsal and rostral ACC during anticipation of threat and no differences in the amygdala as compared to uninhibited young adults (Clauss et al, 2014).…”

“…Greater autonomic responses during conditioning, as well as while anticipating threat during extinction, have also been observed in at-risk children (Craske et al, 2008). Furthermore, neuroimaging studies with at-risk children have shown increased responses in the lateral OFC and insula to aversive stimuli (McCabe, Woffindale, Harmer, & Cowen, 2012), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to losses (Gotlib et al, 2010), pregenual ACC to negative words (Mannie et al, 2008), and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) during negative mood induction (Joormann, Cooney, Henry, & Gotlib, 2012), as well as diminished responses in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) to fearful faces (Mannie, Taylor, Harmer, Cowen, & Norbury, 2011).…”

Healthy co-twins of patients with affective disorders show reduced risk-related activation of the insula during a monetary gambling task

“…5 Accordingly, other groups have shown altered frontal and subcortical reward-related neural processes in healthy individuals at familial risk for affective disorders. [6][7][8] Prospective longitudinal studies may provide valuable insights into the association between risk factors and disorder onset. By following healthy high-risk individuals for 7 years before the onset of any affective disorder, we were able to show that discrete subclinical symptoms predict subsequent disorder onset.…”