Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-8mjnm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T12:28:02.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Neural correlates of attention biases of people with major depressive disorder: a voxel-based morphometric study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2008

K.-K. Leung
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
T. M. C. Lee*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Neuropsychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Laboratory of Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Clinical Neuropsychology, MacLehose Medical Rehabilitation Centre and The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
M. M. C. Wong
Affiliation:
Queen Mary Hospital, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
L. S. W. Li
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
P. S. F. Yip
Affiliation:
Department of Social Work and Social Administration, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong The Hong Kong Jockey Club Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
P.-L. Khong
Affiliation:
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, The University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong
*
*Address for correspondence: T. M. C. Lee, Ph.D., K610, Laboratory of Neuropsychology, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. (Email: tmclee@hkusua.hku.hk)

Abstract

Background

Patients with major depressive disorder are found to show selective attention biases towards mood-congruent information. Although previous studies have identified various structural changes in the brains of these patients, it remains unclear whether the structural abnormalities are associated with these attention biases. In this study, we used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to explore the structural correlates of attention biases towards depression-related stimuli.

Method

Seventeen female patients with major depressive disorder and 17 female healthy controls, matched on age and intelligence, underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). They also performed positive-priming (PP) and negative-priming (NP) tasks involving neutral and negative words that assessed selective attention biases. The reaction time (RT) to a target word that had been attended to or ignored in a preceding trial was measured on the PP and NP tasks respectively. The structural differences between the two groups were correlated with the indexes of attention biases towards the negative words.

Results

The enhanced facilitation of attention to stimuli in the PP task by the negative valence was only found in the depressed patients, not in the healthy controls. Such attention biases towards negative stimuli were found to be associated with reduced gray-matter concentration (GMC) in the right superior frontal gyrus, the right anterior cingulate gyrus and the right fusiform gyrus. No differential effect in inhibition of attention towards negative stimuli in the NP task was found between the depressed patients and the healthy controls.

Conclusions

Specific structural abnormalities in depression are associated with their attention biases towards mood-congruent information.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ashburner, J, Friston, KJ (2000). Voxel-based morphometry: the methods. NeuroImage 11, 805821.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beauregard, M, Paquette, V, Lévesque, J (2006). Dysfunction in the neural circuitry of emotional self-regulation in major depressive disorder. NeuroReport 17, 843846.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, AT, Steer, RA, Brown, GK (1996). Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II. Psychological Corporation: San Antonio, TX.Google Scholar
Beijing, yuyan, xue yuan, yu yan jiao, xue yan jiu suo (1986). Modern Chinese Word Frequency Dictionary (XianDai HanYu PinLu CiDian). Beijing yu yan xue yuan chu ban she. Xin hua shu dian Beijing fa xing suo: Beijing.Google Scholar
Bremner, JD, Vythilingam, M, Vermetten, E, Nazeer, A, Adil, J, Khan, S, Staib, LH, Charney, DS (2002). Reduced volume of orbitofrontal cortex in major depression. Biological Psychiatry 51, 273279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, L, Sherbenou, RJ, Johnsen, SK (1997). Test of Nonverbal Intelligence: A Language-Free Measure of Cognitive Ability, 3rd edn. Pro-Ed: Austin, TX.Google Scholar
Bush, G, Luu, P, Posner, MI (2000). Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4, 215222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Caetano, SC, Kaur, S, Brambilla, P, Nicoletti, M, Hatch, JP, Sassi, RB, Mallinger, AG, Keshavan, MS, Kupfer, DJ, Frank, E, Soares, JC (2006). Smaller cingulate volumes in unipolar depressed patients. Biological Psychiatry 59, 702706.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carson, AJ, MacHale, S, Kathryn, A, Lawrie, SM, Dennis, M, House, A, Sharpe, M (2000). Depression after stroke and lesion location: a systematic review. Lancet 256, 122126.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chinese Behavioral Sciences Society (2000). The Chinese Version of the Beck Depression Inventory, 2nd edn. Licensed Chinese translation,The Psychological Corporation. Harcourt Brace: New York.Google Scholar
Clark, DA, Steer, RA (1996). Empirical status of the cognitive model of anxiety and depression. In Frontiers of Cognitive Therapy (ed. Salkovskis, P. M.), pp. 7596. Guilford Press: New York.Google Scholar
Clark, LA, Watson, D (1991). Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 100, 316336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Compton, RJ (2003). The interface between emotion and attention: a review of evidence from psychology and neuroscience. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Review 2, 115129.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corbetta, M, Shulman, GL (2002). Control of goal-directed and stimulus-driven attention in the brain. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3, 201215.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davidson, RJ, Lewis, DA, Alloy, LB, Amaral, DG, Bush, G, Cohen, JD, Drevets, WC, Farah, MJ, Kagan, J, McClelland, JL, Nolen-Hoekesema, S, Peterson, BS (2002 a). Neural and behavioral substrates of mood and mood regulation. Biological Psychiatry 52, 478502.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davidson, RJ, Pizzagalli, D, Nitschke, JB, Putnam, K (2002 b). Depression: perspectives from affective neuroscience. Annual Review of Psychology 53, 545574.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dolan, RJ, Bench, CJ, Brown, RG, Scott, LC, Frackowiak, RS (1994). Neuropsychological dysfunction in depression: the relationship to regional cerebral blood flow. Psychological Medicine 24, 849857.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Drevets, WC, Price, JL, Simpson, JRJ, Todd, RD, Reich, T, Vannier, M, Raichle, ME (1997). Subgenual prefrontal cortex abnormalities in mood disorders. Nature 386, 824827.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eckert, MA, Tenforde, A, Galaburda, AM, Bellugi, U, Korenberg, JR, Mills, D, Reiss, AL (2006). To modulate or not to modulate: differing results in uniquely shaped Williams syndrome brains. NeuroImage 32, 10011007.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eizenman, M, Yu, LH, Grupp, L, Eizenman, E, Ellenbogen, M, Gemar, M, Levitan, RD (2003). A naturalistic visual scanning approach to assess selective attention in major depressive disorder. Psychiatry Research 118, 117128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fales, CL, Barch, DM, Rundle, MM, Mintun, MA, Snyder, AZ, Cohen, JD, Mathews, J, Sheline, Y (2008). Altered emotional interference processing in affective and cognitive-control brain circuitry in major depression. Biological Psychiatry 63, 377384.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Feinberg, TE, Rifkin, A, Schaffer, C, Walker, E (1986). Facial discrimination and emotional recognition in schizophrenia and affective disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 43, 276279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Friston, KJ, Holmes, AP, Worsley, KJ, Poline, JP, Frith, CD, Frackowiak, RSJ (1995). Statistical parametric maps in functional imaging: a general linear approach. Human Brain Mapping 2, 189210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaebel, W, Wölwer, W (1992). Facial expression and emotional face recognition in schizophrenia and depression. European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience 242, 4652.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goeleven, E, De Raedt, R, Baert, S, Koster, EHW (2006). Deficient inhibition of emotional information in depression. Journal of Affective Disorders 93, 149157.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goethals, I, Audenaert, K, Jacobs, F, Van de Wiele, C, Ham, H, Pyck, H, Vandierendonck, A, Van Heeringen, C, Dierckx, R (2005). Blunted prefrontal perfusion in depressed patients performing the Tower of London task. Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging 139, 3140.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Good, CD, Johnsrude, IS, Ashburner, J, Henson, RNA, Friston, KJ, Frackowiak, RSJ (2001). A voxel-based morphometric study of ageing in 465 normal adult human brains. NeuroImage 14, 2136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gotlib, IH, Krasnoperova, E, Yue, DN, Joormann, J (2004). Attentional biases for negative interpersonal stimuli in clinical depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 127135.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gotlib, IH, Ranganath, C, Rosenfeld, JP (1998). Frontal EEG alpha asymmetry, depression and cognitive functioning. Cognition and Emotion 12, 449478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gotlib, IH, Yue, DN, Joormann, J (2005). Selective attention in dysphoric individuals: the role of affective interference and inhibition. Cognitive Therapy Research 29, 417432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimm, S, Beck, J, Schuepbach, D, Hell, D, Boesiger, P, Bermpohl, F, Niehaus, L, Boeker, H, Northoff, G (2008). Imbalance between left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in major depression is linked to negative emotional judgment: an fMRI study in severe major depressive disorder. Biological Psychiatry 63, 369376.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrison, PJ (2002). The neuropathology of primary mood disorder. Brain 125, 14281449.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hastings, RS, Parsey, RV, Oquendo, MA, Arango, V, Mann, JJ (2004). Volumetric analysis of the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus in major depression. Neuropsychopharmacology 29, 952959.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Joormann, J (2004). Attentional bias in dysphoria: the role of inhibitory processes. Cognition and Emotion 18, 125147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lauterbach, E, Jackson, JG, Price, ST, Wilson, AN, Kirsh, AD, Dever, GEA (1997). Clinical, motor, and biological correlates of depressive disorders after focal subcortical lesions. Journal of Neuropsychiatry 9, 256266.Google ScholarPubMed
Lavretsky, H, Kurbanya, K, Ballmaier, M, Mintz, J, Toga, A, Kumar, A (2004). Sex differences in brain structure in geriatric depression. American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 12, 653657.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leung, KK, Lee, TMC, Yip, P, Li, LSW, Wong, MMC (2007). Selective attention biases of people with depression: positive and negative priming of depression-related information. Psychiatry Research. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2007.10.022.Google Scholar
Lévesque, J, Eugène, F, Joanette, Y, Paquette, V, Mensour, B, Beaudoin, G, Leroux, J-M, Bourgouin, P, Beauregard, M (2003). Neural circuitry underlying voluntary suppression of sadness. Biological Psychiatry 53, 502510.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liotti, M, Mayberg, HS (2001). The role of functional neuroimaging in the neuropsychology of depression. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 23, 121136.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacQueen, GM, Campbell, S, McEwen, BS, Macdonald, K, Amano, S, Joffe, RT, Nahmias, C, Young, LT (2003). Course of illness, hippocampal function, and hippocampal volume in major depression. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100, 13871392.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marshall, PJ, Fox, NA (2000). Emotion regulation, depression, and hemispheric asymmetry. In Stress, Coping, and Depression (ed. Johnson, S. L., Hayes, A. M., Field, T. M., Schneiderman, N. and McCabe, P. M.), pp. 3550. Lawrence Erlbaum: Mahwah, NJ.Google Scholar
Mayberg, HS (2002). Mapping mood: an evolving emphasis on frontal–limbic interactions. In Principles of Frontal Lobe Function (ed. Stuss, D. T. and Knight, R. T.), pp. 376391. Oxford University Press: London.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayberg, HS (2003). Modulating dysfunctional limbic-cortical circuits in depression: towards development of brain-based algorithms for diagnosis and optimized treatment. British Medical Bulletin 65, 193207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayberg, HS, Liotti, M, Brannan, SK, McGinnis, S, Mahurin, RK, Jerabek, PA, Silva, JA, Tekell, JL, Martin, CC, Lancaster, JL, Fox, PT (1999). Reciprocal limbic-cortical function and negative mood: converging PET findings in depression and normal sadness. American Journal of Psychiatry 156, 675682.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mechelli, A, Price, CJ, Friston, KJ, Ashburner, J (2005). Voxel-based morphometry of the human brain: methods and applications. Current Medical Imaging Reviews 1, 19.Google Scholar
Miguel-Hidalgo, JJ, Rajkowska, G (2002). Morphological brain changes in depression: can antidepressants reverse them? CNS Drugs 16, 361372.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Milliken, B, Joordens, S, Merikle, PM, Seiffert, AE (1998). Selective attention: a reevaluation of the implications of negative priming. Psychological Review 105, 203229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, PL, Robinson, RG, de Carvalho, ML, Albert, P, Wells, JC, Samuels, JF, Eden-Fetzer, D, Price, TR (1996 a). Lesion characteristics and depressed mood in the Stroke Data Bank study. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 8, 153159.Google ScholarPubMed
Morris, PL, Robinson, RG, Raphael, B, Hopwood, MJ (1996 b). Lesion location and poststroke depression. Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences 8, 399403.Google ScholarPubMed
Murphy, FC, Sahakian, BJ, Rubinsztein, JS, Michael, A, Rogers, RD, Robbins, TW, Paykel, ES (1999). Emotional bias and inhibitory control processes in mania and depression. Psychological Medicine 29, 13071321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pizzagalli, DA, Peccoralo, LA, Davidson, RJ, Cohen, JD (2006). Resting anterior cingulate activity and abnormal responses to errors in subjects with elevated depressive symptoms: a 128-channel EEG study. Human Brain Mapping 27, 185201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Posner, MI, Rothbart, MK (2007). Research on attention networks as a model for the integration of psychological science. Annual Review of Psychology 58, 123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, MJ, Cameron, CM, Dalgleish, T (1996). Emotional priming in clinical depressed subjects. Journal of Affective Disorders 38, 111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rinck, M, Becker, E (2005). A comparison of attentional biases and memory biases in women with social phobia and major depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 114, 6274.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schacter, DL, Buckner, RL (1998). Priming and the brain. Neuron 20, 185195.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schneider, W, Eschman, A, Zuccolotto, A (2002). E-prime User's Guide. Psychology Software Tools Inc.: Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Sheline, YI (2000). 3D MRI studies of neuroanatomic changes in unipolar major depression: the role of stress and medical comorbidity. Biological Psychiatry 48, 791800.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, DJ, Kyle, S, Forty, L, Cooper, C, Walters, J, Russell, E, Caesar, S, Farmer, A, McGuffin, P, Jones, I, Jones, L, Craddock, N (2008). Differences in depressive symptom profile between males and females. Journal of Affective Disorders 108, 279284.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steffens, DC, Byrum, CE, McQuoid, DR, Greenberg, DL, Payne, ME, Blitchington, TF, MacFall, JR, Krishnan, KRR (2000). Hippocampal volume in geriatric depression. Biological Psychiatry 48, 301309.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Surguladze, S, Brammer, MJ, Keedwell, P, Giampietro, V, Young, AW, Travis, MJ, Williams, SCR, Phillips, ML (2005). A differential pattern of neural response toward sad versus happy facial expressions in major depressive disorder. Biological Psychiatry 57, 201209.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tekin, S, Cummings, JL (2002). Frontal-subcortical neuronal circuits and clinical neuropsychiatry: an update. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 53, 647654.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tipper, SP (1985). The negative priming effect: inhibitory effects of ignored primes. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 37A, 571590.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tipper, SP (2001). Does negative priming reflect inhibitory mechanisms? A review and integration of conflicting views. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 54A, 321343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vakili, K, Pillay, SS, Lafer, B, Fava, M, Renshaw, PF, Bonello-Cintron, CM, Yurgelun-Todd, DA (2000). Hippocampal volume in primary unipolar major depression: a magnetic resonance imaging study. Biological Psychiatry 47, 10871090.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vythilingam, M, Vermetten, E, Anderson, GM, Luckenbaugh, D, Anderson, ER, Snow, J, Staib, LH, Charney, DS, Bremner, JD (2004). Hippocampal volume, memory, and cortisol status in major depressive disorder: effects of treatment. Biological Psychiatry 56, 101112.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, E, McGuire, M, Bettes, B (1984). Recognition and identification of facial stimuli by schizophrenics and patients with affective disorders. British Journal of Clinical Psychology 23, 3744.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed