title: An fMRI-study on semantic priming of panic-related information in depression without comorbid anxiety.
abstract: Depression often involves anxiety symptoms and shows a strong comorbidity with panic disorder. However, the neural basis is unclear. The aim of the current study was to use semantic priming to investigate the neural correlates of panic and anxiety-related information processing in depression. In a lexical decision task, panic/agoraphobia-disorder-related and neutral word-pairs were presented during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants comprised 19 patients with major depression but without comorbid anxiety and 19 demographically matched controls. On a behavioral level, comparable significant priming effects were found for the neutral condition, while only patients showed a significant inhibition effect (slower reaction time for panic-related stimuli) for the panic condition. On a neural level, significant group differences emerged in left fronto-parietal (enhanced activation for patients) and left temporo-occipital regions (reduced activation for patients). The results showed that depressed patients recruit not only areas related to the interaction of emotion and semantic processing but also regions that are related to fear circuitry to process panic-related information. Hence, in the context of depression, there seems to be a pathological processing of panic-related information that could play an important role during the disorder and should be considered.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Psychology, University of Bonn, Sigmund-Freud-Str. 25, 53127 Bonn, Germany; Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr. 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany. Electronic address: Katharina.Sass@ukb.uni-bonn.de.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sass
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry und Psychotherapy, Philipps-University Marburg, Rudolf-Bultmann-Straße 8, 35039 Marburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Tilo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kircher
authors.affiliation: Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr. 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Siegfried
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gauggel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, Pauwelsstr. 30, 52074 Aachen, Germany; JARA-Translational Brain Medicine, Aachen, Germany.
authors.forename: Ute
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Habel
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D010200:Panic / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Affective disorder; Emotion cognition interaction; Semantic processing