Shanghai Med-X Engineering Research Center, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200030 Shanghai, China.
Shanghai Med-X Engineering Research Center, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 200030 Shanghai, China; Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
Neurophysiol Clin. 2019 Jun;49(3):235-242. doi: 10.1016/j.neucli.2019.03.001. Epub 2019 Mar 19.
Studies have reported that depressed patients have difficulties in disengaging attention from negative information, but knowledge of the temporal characteristics of this disengagement is still rudimentary. Our objective is to reveal the temporal characteristics of attentional disengagement from emotional facial cues in depression.
We recruited 22 depressed patients and 22 healthy controls to participate in a cued target-response task with emotional facial expressions (happy, natural, and sad) as cues and three types of cue-target intervals (CTIs: 350ms, 1000ms, and 1500ms). Both behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected from each subject while performing the task. Then, both behavioral results and event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed across groups (depressed patients and normal controls), emotional types of facial cues (happy, natural, and sad), and CTIs.
Both depressed patients and healthy controls had shorter response times in the conditions of CTI=1000ms and 1500ms than in the condition of CTI=350ms but had no significant difference in response time between the conditions of CTI=1000ms and CTI=1500ms. The contingent negative variation (CNV), a well-documented ERP marker of cue-induced expectation of the forthcoming target, clearly appeared about 1000ms following cue onset for normal controls and 1300ms following cue onset for depressed patients. Statistical analysis by repeated-measures Anova showed that a main group effect exists for the average amplitudes of ERPs at electrode Cz 930ms after cue onset, while there was no main effect of cue or interaction effect between cue and group.
These results suggest that normal controls complete their attentional disengagement from emotional facial expression between 350ms to 1000ms after cue offset, while depressed patients complete their attentional disengagement later than that of normal controls but earlier than 1500ms from the perspective of CNV onset, though the two groups have no significant difference in response time in the conditions of CTI=1000ms and CTI=1500ms respectively.
研究表明抑郁患者在从负性信息中转移注意力方面存在困难，但对这种注意力转移的时间特征仍知之甚少。本研究旨在揭示抑郁患者从情绪面部线索中注意力转移的时间特征。
我们招募了 22 名抑郁患者和 22 名健康对照者参与带有情绪面部表情（高兴、自然和悲伤）的线索-目标反应任务，这些表情作为线索，线索-目标间隔（CTI）有 350ms、1000ms 和 1500ms 三种类型。每位受试者在执行任务时同时记录行为和脑电（EEG）数据。然后，对组间（抑郁患者和正常对照组）、情绪类型的面部线索（高兴、自然和悲伤）和 CTI 进行行为结果和事件相关电位（ERP）分析。
抑郁患者和健康对照组在 CTI=1000ms 和 CTI=1500ms 条件下的反应时间均短于 CTI=350ms 条件，但在 CTI=1000ms 和 CTI=1500ms 条件下的反应时间无显著差异。条件性负变（CNV）是一种记录良好的提示引发对即将到来目标的期望的 ERP 标志物，在正常对照组中，CNV 在提示出现后约 1000ms 时明显出现，而在抑郁患者中，CNV 在提示出现后约 1300ms 时明显出现。重复测量方差分析的统计分析表明，在提示出现后 930ms 时，电极 Cz 的 ERP 平均振幅存在主要的组间效应，而在提示和组间的交互作用方面没有主效应。
这些结果表明，正常对照组在提示后 350ms 到 1000ms 之间完成了对情绪面部表情的注意力转移，而抑郁患者在提示后完成注意力转移的时间晚于正常对照组，但早于 1500ms ，从 CNV 出现的角度来看，尽管两组在 CTI=1000ms 和 CTI=1500ms 条件下的反应时间无显著差异。
