Neural correlates of depressive realism - An fMRI study on causal attribution in depression.

J Affect Disord. 2012 Feb 27;

Authors: Seidel EM, Satterthwaite TD, Eickhoff SB, Schneider F, Gur RC, Wolf DH, Habel U, Derntl B

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Biased causal attribution is a critical factor in the cognitive model of depression. Whereas depressed patients interpret events negatively, healthy people show a self-serving bias (internal attribution of positive events and external attribution of negative events). METHODS: Using fMRI, depressed patients (n=15) and healthy controls (n=15) were confronted with positive and negative social events and made causal attributions (internal vs. external). Functional data were analyzed using a mixed effects model. RESULTS: Behaviourally, controls showed a self-serving bias, whereas patients demonstrated a balanced attributional pattern. Analysis of functional data revealed a significant group difference in a fronto-temporal network. Higher activation of this network was associated with non self-serving attributions in controls but self-serving attributions in patients. Applying a psycho-physiological interaction analysis, we observed reduced coupling between a dorsomedial PFC seed region and limbic areas during self-serving attributions in patients compared to controls. LIMITATIONS: Results of the PPI analysis are preliminary given the liberal statistical threshold. CONCLUSIONS: The association of the behaviourally less frequent attributional pattern with activation in a fronto-temporal network suggests that non self-serving responses may produce a self-related response conflict in controls, while self-serving responses produce this conflict in patients. Moreover, attribution-modulated coupling between the dorsomedial PFC and limbic regions was weaker in patients than controls. This preliminary finding suggests that depression may be associated with disturbances in fronto-limbic coupling during attributional decisions. Our results implicate that treatment of major depression may benefit from approaches that facilitate reinterpretation of emotional events in a more positive, more self-serving way.

PMID: 22377511 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]