Objective: The influence of emotional contents on brain activation was examined using functional magnetic resonance tomography (fMRT).
Method: Aquiring 100 EPI-measurements of the whole brain, series of positive and negative pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) were shown to eight depressed males and to healthy controls.
Results: In depression, there was an overactivation in hippocampal area during positive stimulation, whereas an overactivation of amygdala, orbital and prefrontal regions was seen during negative stimulation.
Conclusions: These results emphasize the importance of functional interaction between the neural network associated with emotion. We could show that depression is connected to dysregulation and disturbed functional connectivity during emotional processing.