Sub-Department of Clinical Health Psychology, University College London, UK.
Psychiatry Res. 2012 Feb 28;201(2):98-106. doi: 10.1016/j.pscychresns.2011.08.008. Epub 2012 Mar 3.
Depression is associated with three distinct alterations in memory functioning: mood-congruent recall, over-generality, and intrusive memories. These concern the autobiographical memory system, yet no previous studies have examined the neural correlates of autobiographical memory function in depression. In the present study we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess depressed and control participants during an autobiographical memory task. In their first visit to the laboratory, participants wrote a narrative account of a distressing event. Participants were scanned during the second visit while they viewed old items from their narrative and new words or phrases in a recognition memory task. Activity common to both groups during the successful identification of personal emotional memories was observed in regions previously associated with autobiographical memory retrieval. Reduced activity in the depressed group was observed in three regions of the prefrontal cortex associated with cognitive, emotional, and memory inhibition. These results are consistent with a failure by depressed individuals to inhibit task-irrelevant information during an autobiographical memory task.
情绪一致的回忆、过度概括和侵入性记忆。这些与自传体记忆系统有关，但以前的研究尚未检查抑郁症患者自传体记忆功能的神经相关性。在本研究中，我们使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）在自传体记忆任务中评估抑郁患者和对照组参与者。在第一次实验室访问时，参与者写下了一段痛苦事件的叙述。在第二次访问时，当参与者在识别记忆任务中查看个人叙述中的旧项目和新单词或短语时，对参与者进行了扫描。在成功识别个人情感记忆时，两组共同的活动被观察到在前扣带回皮层的三个区域，该区域与认知、情感和记忆抑制有关。这些结果与抑郁个体在自传体记忆任务中无法抑制与任务无关的信息的假设一致。
