Division of Neuroscience and Experimental Psychology, School of Biological Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
School of Psychology, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China.
Psychol Med. 2022 Aug;52(11):2043-2051. doi: 10.1017/S0033291720003864. Epub 2020 Oct 28.
Abnormal processing of social feedback is an important contributor to social dysfunction in depression, however the exact mechanisms remain unclear. One important factor may be the extent to which social processing depends on expectations, in particular whether social feedback confirms or violates expectations.
To answer this question, we studied behavioral and brain responses during the evaluative processing of social feedback in 25 individuals with subthreshold depression (SD) and 25 healthy controls (HCs). Participants completed a Social Judgment Task in which they first indicated expectation about whether a peer would like them or not, and then received peer's feedback indicating acceptance or rejection.
Individuals with SD who reported greater depressive symptoms gave fewer positive expectations. Compared to HCs, individuals with SD showed reduced activation in the medial prefrontal cortex when expecting positive feedback. They also exhibited increased dorsal anterior cingulate cortex after receipt of unexpected social rejection, and reduced ventral striatum activity after receipt of unexpected social acceptance.
The observed alternations are specific to unexpected social feedback processing and highlight an important role of expectancy violation in the brain dysfunction of social feedback perception and evaluation in individuals at risk for depression.
异常的社会反馈处理是导致抑郁患者社会功能障碍的一个重要因素，但确切的机制仍不清楚。一个重要的因素可能是社会处理在多大程度上取决于预期，特别是社会反馈是否确认或违反了预期。
为了回答这个问题，我们研究了 25 名处于亚临床抑郁（SD）状态的个体和 25 名健康对照者（HCs）在社会反馈评价处理过程中的行为和大脑反应。参与者完成了一项社会判断任务，他们首先表示对同伴是否喜欢自己的期望，然后收到同伴表示接受或拒绝的反馈。
报告抑郁症状较多的 SD 个体给予的积极期望较少。与 HCs 相比，SD 个体在期待积极反馈时，内侧前额叶皮层的激活减少。他们在收到意外的社会拒绝后，背侧前扣带皮层的活动增加，在收到意外的社会接受后，腹侧纹状体的活动减少。
观察到的交替变化是特定于意外的社会反馈处理的，突出了期望违背在抑郁风险个体的社会反馈感知和评价的大脑功能障碍中的重要作用。
