Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 57, Issue 3, 1 February 2005, Pages 201-209
Biological Psychiatry

Original articles
A differential pattern of neural response toward sad versus happy facial expressions in major depressive disorder

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2004.10.028Get rights and content

Background

Accurate recognition of facial expressions is crucial for social functioning. In depressed individuals, implicit and explicit attentional biases away from happy and toward sad stimuli have been demonstrated. These may be associated with the negative cognitions in these individuals.

Methods

Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), neural responses to happy and sad facial expressions were measured in 14 healthy individuals and 16 individuals with major depressive disorder.

Results

Healthy but not depressed individuals demonstrated linear increases in response in bilateral fusiform gyri and right putamen to expressions of increasing happiness, while depressed individuals demonstrated linear increases in response in left putamen, left parahippocampal gyrus/amygdala, and right fusiform gyrus to expressions of increasing sadness. There was a negative correlation in depressed individuals between depression severity and magnitude of neural response within right fusiform gyrus to happy expressions.

Conclusions

Our findings indicate preferential increases in neural response to sad but not happy facial expressions in neural regions involved in the processing of emotional stimuli in depressed individuals. These findings may be associated with the above pattern of implicit and explicit attentional biases in these individuals and suggest a potential neural basis for the negative cognitions and social dysfunction in major depression.

Section snippets

Participants

Sixteen individuals with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder diagnosed using DSM-IV criteria by the psychiatrist responsible for the patient’s management at the Maudsley Hospital, London (American Psychiatric Association 1994) were recruited from the hospital and community services of the South London and Maudsley National Health Service Trust. Fourteen healthy individuals without a history of previous depressive episodes or other psychiatric history, determined by interview, were

Results

The nature of linear trends in neural response to happy and sad expressions in healthy individuals has been described previously (Surguladze et al 2003). We were interested in examining between-group differences in larger numbers of healthy and depressed individuals in linear trends in neural response to these stimuli.

Discussion

Previous reports have emphasized in depressed individuals implicit and explicit attentional biases toward sad and away from happy stimuli. We aimed to examine the neural basis of attentional biases to happy and sad facial expressions in these individuals. Our findings using a goodness-of-fit statistic and percentage change in BOLD signal indicate differential patterns of neural response in regions important for the response to visual presentations of happy and sad facial expressions in

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