Decreased hemodynamic response to fearful faces relative to neutral faces in the medial frontal cortex of first-episode drug-naïve major depressive disorder

Abstract

Background: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a disabling disease with impaired recognition of emotional facial expressions. However, the evidence is heterogeneous, regarding the mechanism of emotional processing in MDD. Focusing on patients with first-episode drug-naïve MDD, we used functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to investigate whether MDD have characteristic patterns in cerebral activation under facial emotion recognition task (FERT).

Methods: Thirty-five patients with first-episode drug-naïve MDD and 39 healthy controls (HCs) underwent fNIRS measure to evaluate cerebral hemodynamic response in the frontal and temporal cortex during FERT. The 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale, Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale and Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self Report were applied to assess the symptoms of the patients. Cognitive functions were assessed using THINC-integrated tool.

Results: Hypoactivation in the medial frontal was observed in patients with MDD during recognition of fearful faces relative to neutral faces (F-N faces). Specifically, we found more right lateralized activation in the medial frontal cortex among patients with MDD compared to HCs. Further, the medial frontal activation under the condition of F-N faces was positively correlated to scores of digit symbol substitution test, and negatively relative to severity of depressive symptoms in MDD group.

Limitations: Our study is cross-sectional designed, and has a relatively small sample size.

Conclusions: We found abnormal patterns in the medial frontal activation of patients with first-episode drug-naïve MDD in recognition of F-N faces, which correlates with performance in cognitive function and depressive symptoms.

Keywords: Emotions; Facial recognition; Major depressive disorder; Near-infrared spectroscopy.