Hooley Jill M, Gruber Staci A, Scott Laurie A, Hiller Jordan B, Yurgelun-Todd Deborah A
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massacusetts 02138, USA.
Biol Psychiatry. 2005 Apr 1;57(7):809-12. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2005.01.012.
High family levels of expressed emotion reliably predict relapse in patients with schizophrenia and mood disorders; however, the neural mechanisms linking expressed emotion and relapse are unexplored. Dysfunctional activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) has been implicated in the pathophysiology of depression. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to assess focal activation changes in DLPFC in response to a novel psychosocial challenge stimulus developed from the expressed emotion construct.
Healthy control subjects and fully remitted unipolar depressed participants completed blood oxygen level-dependent fMRI while they heard their own mothers making critical and praising comments about them.
Relative to control subjects, participants with a history of depression failed to activate DLPFC when they heard critical remarks. There were no differences between the two groups in their DLPFC responses to maternal praise.
Even if fully well at the time of testing, participants with a known vulnerability to depression respond differently to the psychosocial challenge of being criticized. These findings might have implications for our understanding of vulnerability to depression and to depressive relapse.
高情感表达水平的家庭环境能够可靠地预测精神分裂症和情绪障碍患者的复发；然而，情感表达与复发之间的神经机制尚未得到探索。背外侧前额叶皮质（DLPFC）功能失调与抑郁症的病理生理学有关。功能磁共振成像（fMRI）被用于评估DLPFC对基于情感表达构建的新型心理社会挑战刺激的局灶性激活变化。
健康对照受试者和完全缓解的单相抑郁症参与者在听到自己母亲对他们发表批评和赞扬的评论时，完成了血氧水平依赖性功能磁共振成像。
相对于对照受试者，有抑郁症病史的参与者在听到批评性言论时未能激活DLPFC。两组在DLPFC对母亲赞扬的反应上没有差异。
即使在测试时完全康复，已知易患抑郁症的参与者对被批评的心理社会挑战的反应也有所不同。这些发现可能对我们理解抑郁症易感性和抑郁复发有启示意义。
