This prospective case-control study investigated brain functional correlates of automatic emotion processing in the long-term course of depression. 57 patients with acute major depressive disorder (MDD) and 37 healthy controls (HC) underwent fMRI at baseline and after 2 years, performing an affective priming task with subliminal sad, happy, and neutral face stimuli. At baseline, MDD patients showed amygdala hyperactivity to sad primes. This hyperactivity persisted after 2 years in both relapse and no-relapse subgroups, suggesting that amygdala hyperactivity during automatic negative stimuli processing is a persistent trait, rather than a state, marker of depression.
Publisher
Molecular Psychiatry
Published On
Jan 26, 2024
Authors
Melissa Klug, Verena Enneking, Tiana Borgers, Charlotte M. Jacobs, Katharina Dohm, Anna Kraus, Dominik Grotegerd, Nils Opel, Jonathan Repple, Thomas Suslow, Susanne Meinert, Hannah Lemke, Elisabeth J. Leehr, Jochen Bauer, Udo Dannlowski, Ronny Redlich
Tags
depression
automatic emotion processing
amygdala hyperactivity
fMRI
major depressive disorder
emotional stimuli
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