Background
Abnormalities in the neural representation of rewarding and aversive stimuli have
been well-described in patients with acute depression, and we previously found abnormal
neural responses to rewarding and aversive sight and taste stimuli in recovered depressed
patients. The aim of the present study was to determine whether similar abnormalities
might be present in young people at increased familial risk of depression but with
no personal history of mood disorder.
Methods
We therefore used functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural responses
to pleasant and aversive sights and tastes in 25 young people (16–21 years of age)
with a biological parent with depression and 25 age- and gender-matched control subjects.
Results
We found that, relative to the control subjects, participants with a parental history
of depression showed diminished responses in the orbitofrontal cortex to rewarding
stimuli, whereas activations to aversive stimuli were increased in the lateral orbitofrontal
cortex and insula. In anterior cingulate cortex the at-risk group showed blunted neural
responses to both rewarding and aversive stimuli.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest that young people at increased familial risk of depression have
altered neural representation of reward and punishment, particularly in cortical regions
linked to the use of positive and negative feedback to guide adaptive behavior.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: June 18, 2012
Accepted:
April 27,
2012
Received in revised form:
April 27,
2012
Received:
January 14,
2012
Identification
Copyright
© 2012 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirect
Access this article on ScienceDirectLinked Article
- A “Taste” of What is to Come: Reward Sensitivity as a Potential Endophenotype for Major Depressive DisorderBiological PsychiatryVol. 72Issue 7
- PreviewNearly 40% of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) experience a loss of interest and responsiveness to previously rewarding stimuli and activities, a condition referred to clinically as anhedonia (see [1] for review). Anhedonia is one of the most treatment-resistant aspects of depression (2), and there is good reason to believe that the pathophysiology underlying this symptom complex may at least partly involve hypoactivity within the mesolimbic dopamine pathway and related brain structures (3).
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