Reduced Real-life Affective Well-being and Amygdala Habituation in Unmedicated Community Individuals at Risk for Depression and Anxiety

Oksana Berhe; Anna Höflich; Carolin Moessnang; Markus Reichert; Thomas Kremer; Gabriela Gan; Ren Ma; Urs Braun; Ulrich Reininghaus; Ulrich Ebner-Priemer; Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg; Heike Tost

doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.06.009

Reduced Real-life Affective Well-being and Amygdala Habituation in Unmedicated Community Individuals at Risk for Depression and Anxiety

Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2023 Jan;8(1):111-120. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.06.009. Epub 2022 Jun 24.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany.
² Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
³ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; Mental mHealth Lab, Department of Sport and Sport Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany; Department of eHealth and Sports Analytics, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
⁴ Department of Public Mental Health, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; Centre for Epidemiology and Public Health, Health Service and Population Research Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, London, United Kingdom; ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
⁵ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; Mental mHealth Lab, Department of Sport and Sport Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany.
⁶ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany. Electronic address: heike.tost@zi-mannheim.de.

PMID: 35760353
DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.06.009

Abstract

Background: Early identification of risk for depression and anxiety disorders is important for prevention, but real-life affective well-being and its biological underpinnings in the population remain understudied. Here, we combined methods from epidemiology, psychology, ecological momentary assessment, and functional magnetic resonance imaging to study real-life and neural affective functions in individuals with subclinical anxiety and depression from a population-based cohort of young adults.

Methods: We examined psychological measures, real-life affective valence, functional magnetic resonance imaging amygdala habituation to negative affective stimuli, and the relevance of neural readouts for daily-life affective function in 132 non-help-seeking community individuals. We compared psychological and ecological momentary assessment measures of 61 unmedicated individuals at clinical risk for depression and anxiety (operationalized as subthreshold depression and anxiety symptoms or a former mood or anxiety disorder) with those of 48 nonrisk individuals and 23 persons with a mood or anxiety disorder. We studied risk-associated functional magnetic resonance imaging signals in subsamples with balanced sociodemographic and image quality parameters (26 nonrisk, 26 at-risk persons).

Results: Compared with nonrisk persons, at-risk individuals showed significantly decreased real-life affective valence (p = .038), reduced amygdala habituation (familywise error-corrected p = .024, region of interest corrected), and an intermediate psychological risk profile. Amygdala habituation predicted real-life affective valence in control subjects but not in participants at risk (familywise error-corrected p = .005, region of interest corrected).

Conclusions: Our data suggest real-life and neural markers for affective alterations in unmedicated community individuals at risk for depression and anxiety and highlight the significance of amygdala habituation measures for the momentary affective experience in real-world environments.

Keywords: Anxiety disorders; Community sample; Ecologic momentary assessment; Functional neuroimaging; Major depression; Mental health risk.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Amygdala
Anxiety
Anxiety Disorders
Depression*
Habituation, Psychophysiologic*
Humans
Young Adult