First Episode Depression Study, Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre

Studies of depressed patients have demonstrated increased amygdala activation to negative affective stimuli. In this study, we used a paradigm that employed personally relevant social stimuli, which are known to strongly activate the amygdala, to test whether the amygdala demonstrated aberrant activity in depressed participants as they responded to stimuli with positive valence. Nineteen patients with major depressive disorder (recruited from Orygen Youth Health), aged 15 to 24 years, were matched with 20 healthy control participants. They completed a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging task in which they received social feedback from people who they believed had evaluated them. Voxelwise statistical parametric maps of brain response to positive social feedback and to a control feedback condition were compared to test the hypothesis that differences in neural response between depressed and control participants would arise in the amygdala.

Time period: 2008-2009

针对抑郁症患者的相关研究已证实，当暴露于负性情绪刺激时，患者的杏仁核（amygdala）激活水平显著升高。本研究采用一项任务范式，该范式使用与个体高度相关的社会性刺激——已知此类刺激可强烈激活杏仁核——以此检验抑郁症被试在响应正性效价刺激时，其杏仁核是否存在异常激活。本研究招募了19名年龄介于15至24岁的重性抑郁症（major depressive disorder）患者（招募自Orygen Youth Health），并匹配了20名健康对照被试。所有被试完成了一项创新性功能磁共振成像（functional magnetic resonance imaging）任务，任务中他们接收到了来自其认为已对自身作出评价的他人的社会性反馈。本研究通过对比大脑对正性社会性反馈以及对照反馈条件的体素级统计参数图（voxelwise statistical parametric maps），验证假说：抑郁症被试与健康对照被试的神经响应差异将出现在杏仁核脑区。研究时间范围：2008年-2009年。