Relationship Between Amygdala Responses to Masked Faces and Mood State and Treatment in Major Depressive Disorder

Abstract

A mood-congruent processing bias toward negatively valenced emotional stimuli is a consistent pathophysiological feature of major depressive disorder (MDD). This bias is evident in behavioral measures that evaluate memory and attention^1-4 as well as in neurophysiological indexes.^5-10 For example, neurophysiological responses to explicitly presented sad faces are exaggerated in the amygdala in depressed patients compared with healthy controls (HCs),¹¹ and this abnormality normalizes after antidepressant drug treatment.¹²