The temporal electrocortical profile of emotive facial processing in depressed males and females and healthy controls

Abstract

Background Previous work indicates that emotive processing, such as of facial expressions, may be altered in major depressive disorder (MDD). Individuals with MDD tend to exhibit a mood-congruent processing bias, though MDD may also be characterized by blunted emotive processing in general. Females tend to exhibit enhanced facial emotive processing than males. Few groups have examined temporal electrophysiological event-related potential (ERP)-indexed profiles, spanning preconscious to sustained, conscious processing of facial expressions in MDD; systematic comparisons of ERPs to emotive stimuli between depressed males and females are also lacking. Methods This study examined the temporal ERP profile to a simple expression recognition task in adult depressed males and females (N=52; 29 females) and controls (N=43; 23 females). Results The MDD group rated facial expressions as sadder overall than controls. Females exhibited enhanced and speeded pre- and conscious face processing than males. Subtle group differences emerged to specific expressions at mid-latency ERPs (N2, P2) indicating both blunted late pre-conscious perceptual processing of expressions and prolonged processing of intensely sad faces. Limitations A more involved emotive processing task, employing threatening faces, may have revealed more robust group ERP differences. Menstrual cycle should be controlled for in future work. Conclusions This is the first study to systematically assess the temporal ERP profile, including of ERPs preceding the face-sensitive N170/VPP, to expressions in MDD. Overall, early perceptual and late conscious expression processing did not differ fundamentally between groups. Altered emotive processing may be a candidate index for monitoring and predicting antidepressant treatment outcome.

Early processing of emotional faces in a Go/NoGo task: lack of N170 right-hemispheric specialisation in children with major depression

“…Further, the earlier onset of perceiving faces did not lead to faster reactions of children with major depression in the emotional Go/NoGo task. It has to be noted that studies investigating adults with major depression have not reported modulations of N170 latency (Foti et al 2010;Jaworska et al 2012;Maurage et al 2008). So our suggestion is that it may be a developmental feature.…”

“…These modulations in early stages may represent impaired attention that leads to dysfunctional processing at later stages (Yang et al 2011). However, it has to be noted that other investigations have not shown abnormalities in P1 (Foti et al, 2010;Jaworska et al 2012;Maurage et al 2008) and only subtle in P2 (Jaworska et al 2012). …”

“…Feuerriegel et al 2015). We expected mood-congruent sad faces in particular to affect the N170 in children with major depression, however, the direction of this effect was unclear as adults with major depression had smaller peak amplitudes (Dai and Feng 2012) or did not differ from healthy controls (Foti et al 2010;Jaworska et al 2012;Maurage et al 2008) but sad faces should draw attention in children with major depression, increasing the N170 (Holmes et al 2003). Furthermore, increased amplitudes for negative emotional faces have been found in normal samples (Batty and Taylor 2003;Blau et al 2007) and a lack of differentiation between positive and negative emotional faces in children with major depression could display dysfunctional processing of interpersonal information (Pollak and Tolley-Schell 2003).…”

“…Adult literature on N170 modulations in major depression showed inconsistent results. Only one study found smaller N170 amplitudes in major depression (Dai and Feng 2012), whereas three other studies did not (Foti et al 2010;Jaworska et al 2012, Maurage et al 2008. A recent review by Feuerriegel et al (2015) concludes that modulations of the N170 are not disorder specific but rather represent general dysfunctions in processing emotional faces underlying social impairments in psychiatric patients.…”

Auditory P3 in antidepressant pharmacotherapy treatment responders, non-responders and controls

“…As outlined elsewhere (Jaworska et al, 2012a/b), 53 adults with a primary diagnosis of MDD (Table 1) were assessed. Diagnosis was established by psychiatrists using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM IV-TR Diagnoses, Axis I, Patient Version (SCID-IV-I/P; First et al, 1997).…”