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Emotional processing and executive functions in major depressive disorder: dorsal prefrontal activity correlates with performance in the intra–extra dimensional set shift

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2014

Alexander Heinzel ,
Georg Northoff ,
Heinz Boeker ,
Peter Boesiger  and
Simone Grimm
Alexander Heinzel*
Affiliation:
Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Düsseldorf, Jülich, Germany
Georg Northoff
Affiliation:
Institute of Mental Health Research, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Heinz Boeker
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland;
Peter Boesiger
Affiliation:
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, ETH and University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Simone Grimm
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Department of Psychiatry, Charité, Berlin, Germany Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion (DINE), Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany
*
Alexander Heinzel, MD, Department of Nuclear Medicine, University of Düsseldorf at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52428 Jülich, Germany. Tel: +49 211 24616347; Fax: +492461618044; E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Heinzel A, Northoff G, Boeker H, Boesiger P, Grimm S. Emotional processing and executive functions in major depressive disorder: dorsal prefrontal activity correlates with performance in the intra–extra dimensional set shift.

Objective:

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterised by predominately negatively valenced emotional symptoms that are often accompanied by cognitive impairments. We posited that cognitive impairments in MDD are related to altered emotional processing in prefrontal cortex.

Methods:

We compared 20 medication-free patients with MDD and 29 matched healthy controls. Both groups performed an emotional task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Furthermore, they completed the intra–extra dimensional set shift (IED) test probing for cognitive impairments. Then we correlated the results of the IED with the changes in fMRI BOLD signal in MDD patients and healthy subjects.

Results:

The subcategory of the IED applying extradimensional shift (EDS) showed a divergent performance of the MDD group committing significantly more errors than the control group. Correlating the EDS errors with fMRI signal changes, the healthy subjects showed a positive correlation with the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the right orbitofrontal cortex. MDD subjects, in contrast, showed a positive correlation in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and a negative correlation in the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC).

Conclusion:

We hypothesise that the differential correlation in healthy controls and MDD patients may reflect the use of different strategies in their performance. The impaired executive functions, as reflected by altered processing in right DLPFC and left DMPFC, may implicitly influence emotional processing in patients suffering from MDD.

Keywords

mayor depressive disorderemotional processingexecutive functionsprefrontal cortexIEDfMRI
Type
Research Article
Information
Acta Neuropsychiatrica , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , December 2010 , pp. 269 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S

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