Patients with depression exhibit increased brain activation, especially in right prefrontal regions, across several types of cognitive task activity. Patients with depression may recruit greater brain regions to achieve similar or even poorer task performance than control subjects.

set of subcortical and limbic regions in which opposite changes are found. Conclusions: The pathophysiology of major depressive disorder involves a complicated series of networks of frontal, temporal-parietal cortical and limbic brain regions and the cerebellum. Questions remain as to whether one or other of these networks play a primary role in the etiology of the disorder.