Increased neural response to social rejection in major depression

Abstract

Background Being a part of community is critical for survival and individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD) have a greater sensitivity to interpersonal stress that makes them vulnerable to future episodes. Social rejection is a critical risk factor for depression and it is said to increase interpersonal stress and thereby impairing social functioning. It is therefore critical to understand the neural correlates of social rejection in MDD. Methods To this end, we scanned 15 medicated MDD and 17 healthy individuals during a modified cyberball passing game, where participants were exposed to increasing levels of social exclusion. Neural responses to increasing social exclusion were investigated and compared between groups. Results We showed that compared to controls, MDD individuals exhibited greater amygdala, insula, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex activation to increasing social exclusion and this correlated negatively with hedonic tone and self‐esteem scores across all participants. Conclusions These preliminary results support the hypothesis that depression is associated with hyperactive response to social rejection. These findings highlight the importance of studying social interactions in depression, as they often lead to social withdrawal and isolation.

Mapping social reward and punishment processing in the human brain: A voxel-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging findings using the Social Incentive Delay task

“…In fact, the pooled sample size of our social punishment meta-analyses exceeded 100 individuals, making it the largest dataset to date investigating this question. Given the role that differences in the processing of social punishments may play in a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders (such as major depressive disorder (Kumar et al, 2017) or antisocial personality disorder (Gong et al, 2019)), it seems imperative that future studies start to invest more in investigating the neural underpinnings of social punishment processing in both healthy and clinical samples. Second, our findings are limited by the reported sample demographics.…”

“…This meta-analysis focused specifically on the anticipation social rewards (it did not examine the receipt phase of social rewards, or the processing of social punishment at all). Given the role that differences in the processing of social punishments may play in a wide range of neuropsychiatric disorders (such as major depressive disorder (Kumar et al, 2017) or antisocial personality disorder (Gong et al, 2019)), characterizing the neural underpinnings of social punishment processing in healthy samples is paramount to identify how disruption of these circuits might give rise to impairments in social cognition during pathology.…”

Cerebral responses to self-initiated action during social interactions

“…Many studies employed a Cyberball task (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003;Williams & Jarvis, 2006) to investigate the neural correlates of social inclusion and exclusion in health (Gonzalez, Beckes, Chango, Allen, & Coan, 2014;van der Meulen et al, 2017;Wasylyshyn et al, 2018) and illness (Domsalla et al, 2013;Kumar et al, 2017). In the Cyberball tasks, by observing players tossing a ball to fellow players or with themselves engaged in the game, participants were involved in the dynamics of social interactions.…”

Neuronale Korrelate von sozialem Ausschluss bei psychischen Erkrankungen

“…Neben den Kardinalsymptomen ist bei Patienten mit depressiven Störungen eine erhöhte Sensitivität für soziale Zurückweisung zu beobachten (62,63). Eine Veränderung neurofunktioneller Korrelate von sozialem Ausschluss ist demnach auch bei dieser Erkrankung anzunehmen und konnte in mehreren bildgebenden Studien beobachtet werden (18,64,65).…”

“…Neuronale Aktivierungen der Amygdala und der Inselregion sind mit emotionalen Reaktionen und psychischem Schmerz nach sozialem Ausschluss assoziiert (18,64,65). Vermehrte neuronale Aktivierung der Amygdala auf negative emotionale Reize waren bei depressiven Patienten im Vergleich zu Gesunden beobachtet worden (66).…”