Department of Psychiatry, University of Münster, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, University of Marburg, Germany.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2013 Nov;34(11):2899-909. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22112. Epub 2012 Jun 13.
Major depression has been repeatedly associated with amygdala hyper-responsiveness to negative (but not positive) facial expressions at early, automatic stages of emotion processing using subliminally presented stimuli. However, it is not clear whether this "limbic bias" is a correlate of depression or represents a vulnerability marker preceding the onset of the disease. Because childhood maltreatment is a potent risk factor for the development of major depression in later life, we explored whether childhood maltreatment is associated with amygdalar emotion processing bias in maltreated but healthy subjects. Amygdala responsiveness to subliminally presented sad and happy faces was measured by means of fMRI at 3 T in N = 150 healthy subjects carefully screened for psychiatric disorders. Childhood maltreatment was assessed by the 25-item childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ). A strong association of CTQ-scores with amygdala responsiveness to sad, but not happy facial expressions emerged. This result was further qualified by an interaction of emotional valence and CTQ-scores and was not confounded by trait anxiety, current depression level, age, gender, intelligence, education level, and more recent stressful life-events. Childhood maltreatment is apparently associated with detectable changes in amygdala function during early stages of emotion processing which resemble findings described in major depression. Limbic hyper-responsiveness to negative facial cues could be a consequence of the experience of maltreatment during childhood increasing the risk of depression in later life.
the present association of limbic bias and maltreatment was demonstrated in the absence of psychopathological abnormalities, thereby limiting strong conclusions.
重度抑郁症患者在情绪处理的早期、自动阶段，对负性（而非正性）面部表情的杏仁核反应过度，这一现象已被多次证实，使用的刺激是潜意识呈现的。然而，这种“边缘偏向”是抑郁的相关因素，还是疾病发作前的脆弱性标志物尚不清楚。 因为儿童期虐待是日后发生重度抑郁症的一个强有力的危险因素，我们探讨了儿童期虐待是否与受虐待但健康的受试者的杏仁核情绪处理偏向有关。 我们在 3T 磁共振扫描仪上对 150 名经过精心筛选无精神障碍的健康受试者进行了功能磁共振成像，以测量杏仁核对潜意识呈现的悲伤和快乐面孔的反应。 我们使用 25 项儿童期创伤问卷（CTQ）来评估儿童期虐待情况。 CTQ 评分与对悲伤面孔的杏仁核反应之间存在强烈关联，但与快乐面孔之间没有关联。 这一结果进一步由情绪效价和 CTQ 评分的相互作用所限定，不受特质焦虑、当前抑郁水平、年龄、性别、智力、教育程度以及近期生活压力事件的影响。 儿童期虐待显然与情绪处理早期阶段杏仁核功能的可检测变化有关，这类似于在重度抑郁症中描述的发现。 对负性面部提示的边缘反应过度可能是儿童期受虐待经历增加日后患抑郁症风险的结果。 局限性： 本研究在没有精神病理学异常的情况下证明了边缘偏向与虐待之间的关联，因此无法得出强有力的结论。
