Crossmodal emotional integration in major depression

Veronika I Müller; Edna C Cieslik; Tanja S Kellermann; Simon B Eickhoff

doi:10.1093/scan/nst057

Crossmodal emotional integration in major depression

Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2014 Jun;9(6):839-48. doi: 10.1093/scan/nst057. Epub 2013 Apr 10.

Authors

Veronika I Müller¹, Edna C Cieslik², Tanja S Kellermann², Simon B Eickhoff³

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, GermanyInstitute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, GermanyInstitute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, Germany v.mueller@fz-juelich.de.
² Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, GermanyInstitute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, GermanyInstitute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, Germany.
³ Institute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, GermanyInstitute of Clinical Neuroscience and Medical Psychology, Medical Faculty Heinrich Heine University, D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany, Department of Neuroscience und Medicine, INM-1, Research Center Jülich, D-52428 Jülich, Germany, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Medical School, RWTH Aachen University, D-52074 Aachen, Germany, and JARA-Brain, Translational Brain Medicine, Jülich/Aachen, Germany.

Abstract

Major depression goes along with affective and social-cognitive deficits. Most research on affective deficits in depression has, however, only focused on unimodal emotion processing, whereas in daily life, emotional perception is often highly dependent on the evaluation of multimodal inputs. We thus investigated emotional audiovisual integration in patients with depression and healthy subjects. Subjects rated the expression of happy, neutral and fearful faces while concurrently being exposed to emotional or neutral sounds. Results demonstrated group differences in left inferior frontal gyrus and inferior parietal cortex when comparing incongruent to congruent happy facial conditions, mainly due to a failure of patients to deactivate these regions in response to congruent stimulus pairs. Moreover, healthy subjects decreased activation in right posterior superior temporal gyrus/sulcus and midcingulate cortex when an emotional stimulus was paired with a neutral rather than another emotional one. In contrast, patients did not show such deactivation when neutral stimuli were integrated. These results demonstrate aberrant neural response in audiovisual processing in depression, indicated by failure to deactivate regions involved in inhibition and salience processing when congruent and neutral audiovisual stimuli pairs are integrated, providing a possible mechanism of constant arousal and readiness to act in this patient group.

Keywords: audiovisual; congruent; depression; emotion; neutral.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Acoustic Stimulation
Adult
Auditory Perception / physiology*
Brain / physiopathology*
Brain Mapping
Depressive Disorder, Major / physiopathology*
Depressive Disorder, Major / psychology*
Emotions / physiology*
Facial Expression
Female
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Neuropsychological Tests
Pattern Recognition, Visual / physiology*
Photic Stimulation
Psychoacoustics

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

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