Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Psychiatry Res. 2010 Sep 30;183(3):209-17. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2010.06.001. Epub 2010 Aug 13.
Although amygdala and frontal lobe functional abnormalities have been reported in patients with mood disorders, the literature regarding major depressive disorder (MDD) is inconsistent. Likely confounds include heterogeneity of patient samples, medication status, and analytic approach. This study evaluated the amygdala and frontal lobe activation in unmedicated MDD patients. Fifteen MDD patients and 15 matched healthy controls were scanned using fMRI during the performance of an emotional face task known to robustly activate the amygdala and prefrontal cortex (PFC). Whole-brain and region of interest analyses were performed, and correlations between clinical features and activation were examined. Significant amygdala and lateral PFC activation were seen within patient and control groups. In a between-group comparison, patients showed significantly reduced activation in the insula, temporal and occipital cortices. In MDD, the presence of anxiety symptoms was associated with decreased orbitofrontal activation. We found robust activation in both the MDD and control groups in fronto-limbic regions with no significant between-group differences using either analytic approach. The current study replicates previous research on unmedicated subjects showing no significant differences in amygdala function in depressed vs. control subjects with respect to simple tasks involving emotion observation.
尽管在情绪障碍患者中已经报道了杏仁核和额叶的功能异常，但关于重度抑郁症（MDD）的文献并不一致。可能的混杂因素包括患者样本的异质性、用药状况和分析方法。本研究评估了未用药的 MDD 患者的杏仁核和额叶激活情况。使用 fMRI 对 15 名 MDD 患者和 15 名匹配的健康对照者进行扫描，在执行已知能强烈激活杏仁核和前额叶皮质（PFC）的情绪面孔任务时进行扫描。进行了全脑和感兴趣区分析，并检查了临床特征与激活之间的相关性。在患者和对照组中均观察到杏仁核和外侧 PFC 的显著激活。在组间比较中，患者在岛叶、颞叶和枕叶显示出明显减少的激活。在 MDD 中，存在焦虑症状与眶额皮质激活减少有关。我们发现 MDD 组和对照组在额-边缘区域均有强烈的激活，两种分析方法均未显示出组间差异。本研究复制了以前的研究，表明在涉及情绪观察的简单任务中，与对照受试者相比，未用药的抑郁受试者的杏仁核功能没有显著差异。
