title: Altered neural function to happy faces in adolescents with and at risk for depression.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is accumulating evidence of alterations in neural circuitry underlying the processing of social-affective information in adolescent Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). However the extent to which such alterations are present in youth at risk for mood disorders remains unclear.
  
  
  METHODS
  Whole-brain blood oxygenation level-dependent task responses and functional connectivity using generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analyses to mild and intense happy face stimuli was examined in 29 adolescents with MDD (MDD; M age, 16.0, S.D. 1.2 years), 38 healthy adolescents at risk of a mood disorder, by virtue of having a parent diagnosed with either Bipolar Disorder (BD) or MDD (Mood-risk; M age 13.4, S.D. 2.5 years) and 43 healthy control adolescents, having parents with no psychiatric disorder (HC; M age 14.6, S.D. 2.2 years).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Relative to HC adolescents, Mood-risk adolescents showed elevated right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activation to 100% intensity happy (vs. neutral) faces and concomitant lowered ventral putamen activity to 50% intensity happy (vs. neutral) faces. gPPI analyses revealed that MDD adolescents showed significantly lower right DLPFC functional connectivity with the ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC) compared to HC to all happy faces.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The current study is limited by the smaller number of healthy offspring at risk for MDD compared to BD.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Because Mood-risk adolescents were healthy at the time of the scan, elevated DLPFC and lowered ventral striatal activity in Mood-risk adolescents may be associated with risk or resiliency. In contrast, altered DLPFC-VLPFC functional connectivity in MDD adolescents may be associated with depressed mood state. Such alterations may affect social-affective development and progression to a mood disorder in Mood-risk adolescents. Future longitudinal follow-up studies are needed to directly answer this research question.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kerestes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Anna Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Segreti
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Lisa A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Department of Psychological Medicine, School of Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK.
authors.forename: Mary L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: Boris
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Birmaher
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Brent
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. Electronic address: ladouceurcd@upmc.edu.
authors.forename: Cecile D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Ladouceur
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000503:physiopathology; D003463:Cues; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006240:Happiness; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology; D011699:Putamen / Q000503:physiopathology; D012056:Reinforcement, Social; D012307:Risk Factors
keywords: Adolescence; Functional connectivity; Major depressive disorder; Social-affective processing