Dysfunction of Pre-Attentive Visual Information Processing in Drug-Naïve Women, But Not Men, During the Initial Episode of Major Depressive Disorder

Xiuxian Yang; Qihe Wang; Zhengxue Qiao; Xiaohui Qiu; Dong Han; Xiongzhao Zhu; Congpei Zhang; Yanjie Yang

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00899

Dysfunction of Pre-Attentive Visual Information Processing in Drug-Naïve Women, But Not Men, During the Initial Episode of Major Depressive Disorder

Front Psychiatry. 2020 Jan 8:10:899. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00899. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Xiuxian Yang¹, Qihe Wang¹, Zhengxue Qiao¹, Xiaohui Qiu¹, Dong Han¹, Xiongzhao Zhu², Congpei Zhang³, Yanjie Yang¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Psychology, Public Health Institute of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
² Medical Psychological Institute, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ The First Special Hospital of Harbin, Harbin, China.

Abstract

Women are twice as likely as men to develop depression. Few studies have explored gender difference in cognitive function of patients with MDD. The gender difference in the pre-attentive information processing of MDD patients is still poorly understood. To examine the gender differences in change detection, 30 medication-free MDD patients (15 women) and 30 age and education matched controls (15 women) were recruited. The deviant-standard reverse oddball paradigm (50 ms/150 ms) was used to obtain the visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) in first episode MDD patients. Compared to men with MDD, women with MDD showed a significantly decreased increment vMMN, while no gender difference in decrement vMMN was found. The increment vMMN amplitude in MDD women was smaller than in healthy women, whereas no difference was found in decrement vMMN. Neither increment nor decrement vMMN differed between MDD men and healthy men. The mean amplitude of increment vMMN was not correlated with symptoms of MDD in MDD patients and MDD women. To conclude, the dysfunction of visual information processing existed at pre-attentive stage in MDD women.

Keywords: cognitive function; gender; major depressive disorder; pre-attentive processing; visual mismatch negativity.