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Abnormal prefrontal activity subserving attentional control of emotion in remitted depressed patients during a working memory task with emotional distracters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2011

R. Kerestes ,
C. D. Ladouceur ,
S. Meda ,
P. J. Nathan ,
H. P. Blumberg ,
K. Maloney ,
B. Ruf ,
A. Saricicek ,
G. D. Pearlson  and
Z. Bhagwagar
...Show all authors
R. Kerestes*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Australia
C. D. Ladouceur
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
S. Meda
Affiliation:
Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, Hartford, CT, USA
P. J. Nathan
Affiliation:
School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University Clayton Campus, Melbourne, Australia Brain Mapping Unit, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, UK
H. P. Blumberg
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
K. Maloney
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
B. Ruf
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
A. Saricicek
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
G. D. Pearlson
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center, Hartford, CT, USA
Z. Bhagwagar
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA Bristol Myers Squibb, Wallingford, CT, USA
M. L. Phillips
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA Department of Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University School of Medicine, Cardiff, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: Miss R. Kerestes, School of Psychology and Psychiatry, Monash University Clayton Campus, Wellington Road, Clayton, Melbourne Victoria, Australia. (Email:[email protected])
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Abstract

Background

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) show deficits in processing of facial emotions that persist beyond recovery and cessation of treatment. Abnormalities in neural areas supporting attentional control and emotion processing in remitted depressed (rMDD) patients suggests that there may be enduring, trait-like abnormalities in key neural circuits at the interface of cognition and emotion, but this issue has not been studied systematically.

Method

Nineteen euthymic, medication-free rMDD patients (mean age 33.6 years; mean duration of illness 34 months) and 20 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC; mean age 35.8 years) performed the Emotional Face N-Back (EFNBACK) task, a working memory task with emotional distracter stimuli. We used blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure neural activity in the dorsolateral (DLPFC) and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), ventral striatum and amygdala, using a region of interest (ROI) approach in SPM2.

Results

rMDD patients exhibited significantly greater activity relative to HC in the left DLPFC [Brodmann area (BA) 9/46] in response to negative emotional distracters during high working memory load. By contrast, rMDD patients exhibited significantly lower activity in the right DLPFC and left VLPFC compared to HC in response to positive emotional distracters during high working memory load. These effects occurred during accurate task performance.

Conclusions

Remitted depressed patients may continue to exhibit attentional biases toward negative emotional information, reflected by greater recruitment of prefrontal regions implicated in attentional control in the context of negative emotional information.

Keywords

Depressionemotional processingfunctional magnetic resonance imagingprefrontal cortexworking memory
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 29 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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