Risk for depression and neural responses to fearful facial expressions of emotion
Chan SWY., Norbury R., Goodwin GM., Harmer CJ.
<jats:sec><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>Depression is associated with neural abnormalities in emotional processing.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Aims</jats:title><jats:p>This study explored whether these abnormalities underlie risk for depression.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Method</jats:title><jats:p>We compared the neural responses of volunteers who were at high and low-risk for the development of depression (by virtue of high and low neuroticism scores; high-N group and low-N group respectively) during the presentation of fearful and happy faces using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>The high-N group demonstrated linear increases in response in the right fusiform gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus to expressions of increasing fear, whereas the low-N group demonstrated the opposite effect. The high-N group also displayed greater responses in the right amygdala, cerebellum, left middle frontal and bilateral parietal gyri to medium levels of fearful <jats:italic>v</jats:italic>. happy expressions.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Risk for depression is associated with enhanced neural responses to fearful facial expressions similar to those observed in acute depression.</jats:p></jats:sec>