Wlad Magdalena, Struckmann Wiebke, Persson Jonas, Rosén Jörgen, Fällmar David, Bodén Robert, Gingnell Malin
Department of Medical Sciences, Psychiatry, https://ror.org/048a87296Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, https://ror.org/00f54p054Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Eur Psychiatry. 2025 Jun 11;68(1):e68. doi: 10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.10043.
Depression is characterized by disturbed emotion processing, with aberrant neural and physiological responses to emotional stimuli. Here, we applied an emotion anticipation and processing paradigm to investigate brain neural and electrodermal reactivities in patients with depression compared with healthy controls.
The study included 42 patients (27 females) and 44 healthy controls (21 females). Subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging with simultaneous measurement of electrodermal activity. During scanning, red or green color cues were presented, followed by pictures of negative or positive valence, respectively. Behavioral valence and arousal ratings of the picture stimuli were conducted after scanning. Anhedonia was assessed through a semi-structured interview in both subject groups.
Patients perceived positive pictures as less positive than controls did. Positive anticipation (i.e., green color cues) elicited stronger activations in the anterior cingulate cortex and the right insula in patients than in healthy controls, indicating salience network disturbances. An exploratory analysis of all regions in the Automated Anatomical Labeling Atlas 2 found significant differences in activity to positive anticipation between groups in several brain regions involved in cognition and emotion processing. Positive and negative anticipation elicited stronger electrodermal responses in healthy controls. However, electrodermal reactivity to negative pictures was higher in patients than in controls.
Ongoing depression affects emotion anticipation and processing at the behavioral, neural, and physiological levels. These findings contribute to increased understanding of the disorder.
抑郁症的特征是情绪加工紊乱，对情绪刺激有异常的神经和生理反应。在此，我们应用一种情绪预期和加工范式，以研究抑郁症患者与健康对照者的脑神经网络和皮肤电反应。
该研究纳入了42例患者（27例女性）和44名健康对照者（21例女性）。受试者接受功能磁共振成像检查，同时测量皮肤电活动。在扫描过程中，呈现红色或绿色线索，随后分别呈现负性或正性效价的图片。扫描后对图片刺激进行行为效价和唤醒评分。通过半结构化访谈对两组受试者的快感缺失进行评估。
与对照者相比，患者将正性图片视为不那么积极。与健康对照者相比，正性预期（即绿色线索）在患者的前扣带回皮质和右侧脑岛引发更强的激活，表明突显网络紊乱。对自动解剖标记图谱2中所有区域的探索性分析发现，在涉及认知和情绪加工的几个脑区中，两组之间对正性预期的活动存在显著差异。正性和负性预期在健康对照者中引发更强的皮肤电反应。然而，患者对负性图片的皮肤电反应性高于对照者。
持续的抑郁症会在行为、神经和生理水平上影响情绪预期和加工。这些发现有助于增进对该疾病的理解。
