A potential role for sensory neuroplasticity in major depressive disorder.pdf

Brain imaging and electrophysiological recordings of primary and secondary sensory cortices indicate that each is arranged into sub-regions that process specific subsets of environmental stimuli. The sizes of these regions, termed cortical response fields (CRFs), have been correlated with the consciously perceived intensity of their respective stimuli and with the neural processing power devoted to analyzing such stimuli. Typically, CRFs are highly plastic, and their experience-dependent plasticity is modulated by attention and reinforcement. Because of this, disorders with negative attentional bias, such as major depressive disorder (MDD), have the potential to significantly alter these maps in psychologically harmful ways. We review literature suggesting that sensory map plasticity plays a role in the initiation and maintenance of major depressive disorder. Such a role would suggest possible new treatments for MDD, and may help explain mechanisms of existing treatments.