Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
5 years ago

Hard to look on the bright side: Neural correlates of impaired emotion regulation in depressed youth.

Kerestes R, Harrison BJ, Whittle S, Davey CG, Stephanou K
The cognitive regulation of emotion is impaired in major depressive disorder and has been linked to an imbalance of prefrontal-subcortical brain activity. Despite suggestions that this relationship represents a neurodevelopmental marker of depression, few studies have examined the neural correlates of emotion regulation in depressed youth. We combined a 'cognitive reappraisal' paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the neural correlates of emotional regulation in a large sample of non-medicated depressed adolescents and young adults (n = 53), and healthy controls (n = 64). As compared to healthy controls, young people with depression were less able to reduce negative affect during reappraisal, which corresponded to blunted modulation of amygdala activity. While in healthy individuals amygdala activation was modulated by age, no such relationship was observed in depressed individuals. Heightened activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and reduced activation of dorsal midline cortex was also found for the depressed group. Overall, these findings suggest that brain systems that support the cognitive reappraisal are functionally altered in youth depression. We argue that excessive engagement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in particular, may be central to understanding how the process of putting a 'positive spin' on negative emotional material may be altered in depressed youth.

Publisher URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28402574

DOI: PubMed:28402574

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