Ramli Fitri Fareez, Singh Nisha, Villa Luca M, Waters Shona, Harmer Catherine J, Cowen Philip J, Godlewska Beata R
Clinical Psychopharmacology Research Group, Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, OX3 7JX, UK.
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Oxford, UK.
Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2025 Jul 11. doi: 10.1007/s00213-025-06857-0.
Cognitive theories propose that negative biases in emotional processing contribute to the maintenance of depressive states. Previous studies reported that acute antidepressant treatment in depressed patients reversed negative emotional biases. However, studies addressing the differences in emotional processing between healthy volunteers and clinically depressed patients with inadequate response to standard antidepressant treatments are limited.
To investigate the differences in emotional processing domains between depressed patients with inadequate response to current antidepressant treatment and healthy controls.
Fifty-four medicated patients with major depression and 45 age- and sex-equated healthy volunteers were tested using the Oxford Emotional Testing Battery.
There was no difference between the two groups in the accuracy of recognising emotional facial expressions. However, there was a significant difference in the pattern of response times in an emotional categorisation task (F = 6.44, p = 0.013, partial η = 0.017) where healthy controls had faster responses towards positive than negative self-referent words (95%CI: -0.291 - -0.054, p = 0.005). In contrast, patients had no significant differences in reaction time for categorizing positive and negative self-referent descriptors. There was also a significant group interaction in an emotional memory task (F = 7.90, p = 0.006, partial η = 0.080) where healthy volunteers recalled significantly more positively valenced words than depressed patients (95%CI: -2.104 - -0.168, p = 0.022).
Depressed patients with inadequate responses toward antidepressants had negative biases in emotional categorisation and emotional memory. These psychological abnormalities may represent targets for treatment in patients with difficult-to-treat depression.
认知理论认为，情绪加工中的负性偏差有助于维持抑郁状态。先前的研究报告称，对抑郁症患者进行急性抗抑郁治疗可逆转负性情绪偏差。然而，针对健康志愿者与对标准抗抑郁治疗反应不佳的临床抑郁症患者在情绪加工方面差异的研究有限。
探讨对当前抗抑郁治疗反应不佳的抑郁症患者与健康对照在情绪加工领域的差异。
使用牛津情绪测试量表对54名正在接受药物治疗的重度抑郁症患者和45名年龄及性别匹配的健康志愿者进行测试。
两组在识别情绪性面部表情的准确性上没有差异。然而，在一项情绪分类任务中，反应时间模式存在显著差异（F = 6.44，p = 0.013，偏η² = 0.017），健康对照对积极自我指涉词的反应比对消极自我指涉词更快（95%CI：-0.291 - -0.054，p = 0.005）。相比之下，患者在对积极和消极自我指涉描述词进行分类时反应时间没有显著差异。在一项情绪记忆任务中也存在显著的组间交互作用（F = 7.90，p = 0.006，偏η² = 0.080），健康志愿者回忆的正性效价词汇明显多于抑郁症患者（95%CI：-2.104 - -0.168，p = 0.022）。
对抗抑郁药反应不佳的抑郁症患者在情绪分类和情绪记忆方面存在负性偏差。这些心理异常可能是难治性抑郁症患者的治疗靶点。
