CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre, Montreal, Canada.
J Affect Disord. 2011 Dec;135(1-3):410-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2011.08.010. Epub 2011 Sep 3.
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the neural correlates of sadness, the prevailing mood in major depression (MD), in a prospective, well-documented community sample followed since birth.
The children, comprising 136 children (65 boys and 71 girls) of mothers with varying levels of depressive symptomatology, were scanned - using a 1.5-Tesla system - while they watched 5 blocks of both sad and neutral film excerpts. Following scanning, they rated the emotions they experienced, and if they identified sadness, they were also asked to rate its intensity.
In children whose mothers exhibited higher depressive symptomatology, compared to children whose mothers displayed lower depressive symptomatology, altered neural responses to sad film excerpts were noted in brain regions known to be involved in sadness and MD, notably the insula, anterior cingulate cortex and caudate nucleus, even though the children did not differ in current mood.
Whether this represents genetic vulnerability or a consequence of exposure to maternal depressive symptoms at a young age is unknown.
The results are consistent with the results of studies in healthy adults and MD patients. The present study suggests that an altered pattern of regional brain responses to sad stimuli, is already present in childhood and might represent vulnerability for MD later in life.
我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来研究悲伤的神经相关性，悲伤是重度抑郁症（MD）的主要情绪，在一个前瞻性的、有充分记录的社区样本中进行研究，该样本从出生开始就一直被跟踪。
该研究纳入了 136 名儿童（65 名男孩和 71 名女孩），他们的母亲具有不同程度的抑郁症状，这些儿童使用 1.5 特斯拉系统进行扫描，同时观看 5 组悲伤和中性的电影片段。扫描后，他们对自己所体验到的情绪进行评分，如果他们识别出悲伤，还被要求对其强度进行评分。
与母亲表现出较低抑郁症状的儿童相比，母亲表现出较高抑郁症状的儿童在观看悲伤电影片段时，大脑中与悲伤和 MD 相关的区域的神经反应发生了改变，这些区域包括脑岛、前扣带皮层和尾状核，尽管这些儿童在当前情绪上没有差异。
目前尚不清楚这是遗传易感性的表现，还是由于儿童时期早期暴露于母亲的抑郁症状所致。
研究结果与健康成年人和 MD 患者的研究结果一致。本研究表明，对悲伤刺激的区域大脑反应模式的改变，在儿童时期已经存在，可能代表了以后生活中 MD 的易感性。
