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. 2011 Dec 8:2:69.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2011.00069. eCollection 2011.

Abnormal left-sided orbitomedial prefrontal cortical-amygdala connectivity during happy and fear face processing: a potential neural mechanism of female MDD

Jorge Renner Cardoso de Almeida  1 , Dina Michaela Kronhaus, Etienne L Sibille, Scott A Langenecker, Amelia Versace, Edmund James Labarbara, Mary Louise Phillips
Affiliations

Abnormal left-sided orbitomedial prefrontal cortical-amygdala connectivity during happy and fear face processing: a potential neural mechanism of female MDD

Jorge Renner Cardoso de Almeida et al. Front Psychiatry. .

Abstract

Background: Pathophysiologic processes supporting abnormal emotion regulation in major depressive disorder (MDD) are poorly understood. We previously found abnormal inverse left-sided ventromedial prefrontal cortical-amygdala effective connectivity to happy faces in females with MDD. We aimed to replicate and expand this previous finding in an independent participant sample, using a more inclusive neural model, and a novel emotion processing paradigm.

Methods: Nineteen individuals with MDD in depressed episode (12 females), and 19 healthy individuals, age, and gender matched, performed an implicit emotion processing and automatic attentional control paradigm to examine abnormalities in prefrontal cortical-amygdala neural circuitry during happy, angry, fearful, and sad face processing measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging in a 3-T scanner. Effective connectivity was estimated with dynamic causal modeling in a trinodal neural model including two anatomically defined prefrontal cortical regions, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and subgenual cingulate cortex (sgACC), and the amygdala.

Results: We replicated our previous finding of abnormal inverse left-sided top-down ventromedial prefrontal cortical-amygdala connectivity to happy faces in females with MDD (p = 0.04), and also showed a similar pattern of abnormal inverse left-sided sgACC-amygdala connectivity to these stimuli (p = 0.03). These findings were paralleled by abnormally reduced positive left-sided ventromedial prefrontal cortical-sgACC connectivity to happy faces in females with MDD (p = 0.008), and abnormally increased positive left-sided sgACC-amygdala connectivity to fearful faces in females, and all individuals, with MDD (p = 0.008; p = 0.003).

Conclusion: Different patterns of abnormal prefrontal cortical-amygdala connectivity to happy and fearful stimuli might represent neural mechanisms for the excessive self-reproach and comorbid anxiety that characterize female MDD.

Keywords: amygdala; dynamic causal modeling; effective connectivity; emotion regulation; major depressive disorder; prefrontal cortex.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Graphic representation of a single happy trial of our emotional dynamic faces task. Over a 1-s duration, the face changed from neutral (0% emotion) to a happy, sad, angry, or fearful face (100% emotion). Participants were asked to identify the color flash presented in mid dynamic change.
Figure 2
Figure 2
The trinodal model including subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), and amygdala and bidirectional connections among regions. Facial stimuli entered the model at each node.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Primary a priori analysis. Top: inverse left-sided vmPFC–amygdala connectivity to happy faces in females with MDD. Bottom: inverse left-sided sgACC–amygdala connectivity to happy faces in females with MDD.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Parallel analysis. Top: greater positive left-sided sgACC–amygdala connectivity to fearful faces in females with MDD. Bottom: reduced positive left-sided vmPFC–sgACC connectivity to happy faces in females with MDD.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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