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Amygdala and whole-brain activity to emotional faces distinguishes major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

ABSTRACT: It can be clinically difficult to distinguish depressed individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). To examine potential biomarkers of difference between the two disorders, the current study examined differences in the functioning of emotion-processing neural regions during a dynamic emotional faces task.During functional magnetic resonance imaging, healthy control adults (HC) (n = 29) and depressed adults with MDD (n = 30) and BD (n = 22) performed an implicit emotional-faces task in which they identified a color label superimposed on neutral faces that dynamically morphed into one of four emotional faces (angry, fearful, sad, happy). We compared neural activation between the groups in an amygdala region-of-interest and at the whole-brain level.Adults with MDD showed significantly greater activity than adults with BD in the left amygdala to the anger condition (p = 0.01). Results of whole-brain analyses (at p < 0.005, k ? 20) revealed that adults with BD showed greater activity to sad faces in temporoparietal regions, primarily in the left hemisphere, whereas individuals with MDD demonstrated greater activity than those with BD to displays of anger, fear, and happiness. Many of the observed BD-MDD differences represented abnormalities in functioning compared to HC.We observed a dissociation between depressed adults with BD and MDD in the processing of emerging emotional faces. Those with BD showed greater activity during mood-congruent (i.e., sad) faces, whereas those with MDD showed greater activity for mood-incongruent (i.e., fear, anger, and happy) faces. Such findings may reflect markers of differences between BD and MDD depression in underlying pathophysiological processes.

SUBMITTER: Fournier JC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3864629 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Amygdala and whole-brain activity to emotional faces distinguishes major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

Fournier Jay C JC Keener Matthew T MT Almeida Jorge J Kronhaus Dina M DM Phillips Mary L ML

Bipolar disorders 20130801 7

<h4>Objectives</h4>It can be clinically difficult to distinguish depressed individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD). To examine potential biomarkers of difference between the two disorders, the current study examined differences in the functioning of emotion-processing neural regions during a dynamic emotional faces task.<h4>Methods</h4>During functional magnetic resonance imaging, healthy control adults (HC) (n = 29) and depressed adults with MDD (n = 30) and B ...[more]

PMID: 23911154

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Project description:ContextMajor depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with behavioral and neurophysiological evidence of mood-congruent processing biases toward explicitly presented, emotionally valenced stimuli. However, few studies have investigated such biases toward implicitly presented stimuli.ObjectiveTo investigate differential amygdala responses to sad, happy, and neutral faces presented below the level of explicit conscious awareness using a backward masking task in unmedicated participants with MDD and healthy controls (HCs).DesignInitial cross-sectional design followed by a longitudinal treatment trial using functional magnetic resonance imaging.SettingPsychiatric outpatient clinic at the National Institute of Mental Health.ParticipantsWe studied 22 unmedicated, currently depressed people with MDD (dMDD), 16 unmedicated individuals with MDD in full remission (rMDD), and 25 HCs.InterventionTen dMDD participants underwent 8 weeks of antidepressant treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor sertraline hydrochloride.Main outcome measuresAmygdala region-of-interest and whole-brain analyses evaluated the hemodynamic response during exposure to masked sad vs masked happy faces, to masked sad vs neutral faces, and to masked happy vs neutral faces.ResultsThe dMDD participants showed greater amygdala responses than HCs to masked sad faces, whereas HCs showed greater amygdala responses to masked happy faces. The bias toward sad faces also was evident in rMDD participants relative to HCs and did not differ between dMDD and rMDD participants. This processing bias reversed toward the normative pattern in dMDD participants after sertraline treatment.ConclusionsEmotional-processing biases occur in amygdala responses to sad faces presented below the level of conscious awareness in dMDD or rMDD individuals and to happy faces in HCs. By influencing the salience of social stimuli, mood-congruent processing biases in the amygdala may contribute to dysfunction in conscious perceptions and social interactions in MDD. Our data suggest, however, that the negative bias resolves and a positive bias develops in patients with MDD during selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor treatment.

Dataset Information

Amygdala and whole-brain activity to emotional faces distinguishes major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

Publications

Amygdala and whole-brain activity to emotional faces distinguishes major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

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