Is there a dysfunction in the visual system of depressed patients?

Abstract

Background: The aim of the current study was to identify a possible locus of dysfunction in the visual system of depressed patients.

Sex-Specific Retinal Anomalies Induced by Chronic Social Defeat Stress in Mice

“…One surprising result in our study is that prolonged cone b-wave implicit times were observed only in control mice-as if it was a typical effect of age-with no effect in stressed mice, therefore, suggesting that CSDS hampers this effect. Interestingly, prolonged cone b-wave implicit times appear to be the most reported manifestation in psychiatric diseases-including MDD-in the human retina (Fountoulakis et al, 2005;Hebert et al, 2010Hebert et al, , 2017Hebert et al, , 2020, thus being in contrast with our results. It is difficult to explain this difference, but it should first be noticed that findings in the retinal anomalies occurring during MDD in humans are still inconsistent.…”

“…Interestingly, the cone b-wave delay identified in MDD patients was similar to the anomalies found in schizophrenia (SZ; Hebert et al, 2015) and bipolar disorder (BP) patients (Hebert et al, 2020) whereas the mixed rod/cone alterations were common to BP, SZ and children at high risk to develop SZ or BP (Hebert et al, 2010). Prolonged cone b-wave implicit times were also reported in MDD patients with suicidal ideation or melancholic anhedonia (Fountoulakis et al, 2005) hence highlighting this ERG alteration as a major manifestation of psychiatric disorders including MDD. In seasonal affective disorder-an MDD-related disease characterized by atypical symptoms-affected patients demonstrated a decreased rod sensitivity in winter months when compared to healthy controls (Hebert et al, 2004;Lavoie et al, 2009).…”

Pattern electroretinography in individuals with major depression

“…In the past, in individuals with MD, retinal function was also analyzed using full field electroretinography (ERG) and the results are inconclusive. In some studies, in the ERG test significant differences between the MD individuals and healthy subjects were not observed [12,14,25]. In contrast, in the largest study (n = 200) Hébert et al [26] observed a prolonged cone b-wave and reduced rod/cone a-waves in medicated and unmedicated MD individuals compared with the controls.…”