Co-occurring anxiety influences patterns of brain activity in depression.
Brain activation associated with anhedonic depression and co-occurring anxious arousal and anxious apprehension was measured by fMRI during performance of an emotion word Stroop task. Consistent with EEG findings, depression was associated with rightward frontal lateralization in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), but only when anxious arousal was elevated and anxious apprehension was low. Activity in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) was also reduced for depression under the same conditions. In contrast, depression was associated with more activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (dorsal ACC and rostral ACC) and the bilateral amygdala. Results imply that depression, particularly when accompanied by anxious arousal, may result in a failure to implement top-down processing by appropriate brain regions (left DLPFC, right IFG) due to increased activation in regions associated with responding to emotionally salient information (right DLPFC, amygdala).
Social, Life, and Engineering Sciences Imaging Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA. ase1@psu.edu
Anna S
AS
Engels
Wendy
W
Heller
Jeffrey M
JM
Spielberg
Stacie L
SL
Warren
Bradley P
BP
Sutton
Marie T
MT
Banich
Gregory A
GA
Miller
D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D001244:Association; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications / Q000473:pathology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
D010100:Oxygen