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Reduced caudate and nucleus accumbens response to rewards in unmedicated individuals with major depressive disorder.

ABSTRACT: Major depressive disorder is characterized by impaired reward processing, possibly due to dysfunction in the basal ganglia. However, few neuroimaging studies of depression have distinguished between anticipatory and consummatory phases of reward processing. Using functional MRI (fMRI) and a task that dissociates anticipatory and consummatory phases of reward processing, the authors tested the hypothesis that individuals with major depression would show reduced reward-related responses in basal ganglia structures.A monetary incentive delay task was presented to 30 unmedicated individuals with major depressive disorder and 31 healthy comparison subjects during fMRI scanning. Whole-brain analyses focused on neural responses to reward-predicting cues and rewarding outcomes (i.e., monetary gains). Secondary analyses focused on the relationship between anhedonic symptoms and basal ganglia volumes.Relative to comparison subjects, participants with major depression showed significantly weaker responses to gains in the left nucleus accumbens and the caudate bilaterally. Group differences in these regions were specific to rewarding outcomes and did not generalize to neutral or negative outcomes, although relatively reduced responses to monetary penalties in the major depression group emerged in other caudate regions. By contrast, evidence for group differences during reward anticipation was weaker, although participants with major depression showed reduced activation to reward cues in a small sector of the left posterior putamen. In the major depression group, anhedonic symptoms and depression severity were associated with reduced caudate volume bilaterally.These results suggest that basal ganglia dysfunction in major depression may affect the consummatory phase of reward processing. Additionally, morphometric results suggest that anhedonia in major depression is related to caudate volume.

SUBMITTER: Pizzagalli DA

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2735451 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Reduced caudate and nucleus accumbens response to rewards in unmedicated individuals with major depressive disorder.

Pizzagalli Diego A DA Holmes Avram J AJ Dillon Daniel G DG Goetz Elena L EL Birk Jeffrey L JL Bogdan Ryan R Dougherty Darin D DD Iosifescu Dan V DV Rauch Scott L SL Fava Maurizio M

The American journal of psychiatry 20090501 6

<h4>Objective</h4>Major depressive disorder is characterized by impaired reward processing, possibly due to dysfunction in the basal ganglia. However, few neuroimaging studies of depression have distinguished between anticipatory and consummatory phases of reward processing. Using functional MRI (fMRI) and a task that dissociates anticipatory and consummatory phases of reward processing, the authors tested the hypothesis that individuals with major depression would show reduced reward-related re ...[more]

PMID: 19411368

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Project description:There is compelling evidence that epigenetic factors contribute to the manifestation of depression, in which microRNA132 (miR-132) is suggested to play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis and neuronal mechanisms underlying the symptoms of depression. Additionally, several depression-associated genes [MECP2, ARHGAP32 (p250GAP), CREB, and period genes] were experimentally validated as miR-132 targets. However, most studies regarding miR-132 in major depressive disorder are based on post-mortem, animal models or genetic comparisons. This work will be the first attempt to investigate how miR-132 dysregulation may impact covariation of multimodal brain imaging data in 81 unmedicated major depressive patients and 123 demographically-matched healthy controls, as well as in a medication-naïve subset of major depressive patients. MiR-132 values in blood (patients > controls) was used as a prior reference to guide fusion of three MRI features: fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations, grey matter volume, and fractional anisotropy. The multimodal components correlated with miR-132 also show significant group difference in loadings. Results indicate that (i) higher miR-132 levels in major depressive disorder are associated with both lower fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations and lower grey matter volume in fronto-limbic network; and (ii) the identified brain regions linked with increased miR-132 levels were also associated with poorer cognitive performance in attention and executive function. Using a data-driven, supervised-learning method, we determined that miR-132 dysregulation in major depressive disorder is associated with multi-facets of brain function and structure in fronto-limbic network (the key network for emotional regulation and memory), which deepens our understanding of how miR-132 dysregulation in major depressive disorders contribute to the loss of specific brain areas and is linked to relevant cognitive impairments.

Project description:Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by impaired processing of negative information, possibly due to dysfunction in both, the bottom-up emotional network and top-down modulatory network. By acquiring functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on a pain-anticipation task, we tested the hypothesis that individuals with MDD would show increased negative biasing that may be associated with reduced frontal connectivity. Thirty-one (15 females) unmedicated young adults with current MDD and 22 (11 females) healthy subjects with no history of MDD were recruited. Groups did not differ significantly in age, race, level of education, marital status or gender distribution. fMRI data were collected during an event-related pain-anticipation paradigm, during which subjects were cued to anticipate painful heat stimuli of high or low intensity. All temperature stimuli were applied to each subject's left forearm. We found that relative to healthy comparison subjects, participants with MDD showed significantly stronger responses to high versus low pain anticipation within right ventral anterior insula (AI), but overlapping response within right dorsal AI, which correlated positively with the depression symptoms severity in the MDD group. Functional connectivity analyses showed increased functional connectivity between dorsal insula and posterior thalamus and decreased functional connectivity between dorsal insula and the right inferior frontal gyrus in the MDD compared with the non-MDD group. Our results demonstrate that unmedicated individuals with current MDD compared with healthy never-depressed subjects show both differential and overlapping response within AI during anticipation of pain. Furthermore, the overlapping insular response is less regulated by frontal brain systems and is more subservient to affective processing regions in the posterior thalamus in MDD. These results support and provide functional validation of the co-occurring enhanced 'bottom-up' and attenuated 'top-down' processing of salient, unpleasant emotional information in MDD.

Project description:BackgroundRecent evidence suggests that sensitivity to the emotional sequela of experimental thermal pain(measured by emotional unpleasantness) is heightened in individuals with major depressive disorder(MDD), a phenomenon we termed "emotional allodynia". The aim of this study was to examine whether acute happy and sad mood induction alters emotional allodynia in MDD. We hypothesized that emotional allodynia will be a robust characteristic of individuals with MDD compared to healthy controls. Thus, it would remain following acute mood induction, independent of valence.MethodsTwenty-one subjects with current MDD and 21 well-matched healthy subjects(HC) received graded brief temperature stimuli following happy and sad mood inductions procedures(MIP). All subjects rated the intensity and affect(pleasantness/unpleasantness) of each stimulus. Sensory(pain intensity) and affective(pain unpleasantness) thresholds were determined by methods of constant stimuli.ResultsThe MIPs reliably induced happy and sad mood and the resulting induced mood and subjective arousal were not different between the groups at the time of temperature stimulation. Compared to HC, MDD individuals demonstrated emotional allodynia. We found significantly decreased affective pain thresholds whereby significantly lower temperatures became unpleasant in the MDD compared to the HC group. This was not observed for the sensory pain thresholds. Within the MDD, the affective pain thresholds were significantly lower than the corresponding pain intensity thresholds, whereby non-painful temperatures were already unpleasant for the MDD irrespective of the induced mood. This was not observed for the HC groups where the affective and pain intensity thresholds were comparable.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that emotional allodynia may be a chronic characteristic of current MDD. Future studies should determine if emotional allodynia persists after psychological or pharmacological interventions. Finally, longitudinal work should examine whether emotional allodynia is a result of or vulnerability for depression and the role it plays in the increased susceptibility for pain complaints in this disorder.

Dataset Information

Reduced caudate and nucleus accumbens response to rewards in unmedicated individuals with major depressive disorder.

Publications

Reduced caudate and nucleus accumbens response to rewards in unmedicated individuals with major depressive disorder.

Similar Datasets

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