MDD patients with early life stress deactivate the frontostriatal network during facial emotion recognition paradigm: A functional MRI study

Abstract

Introduction Early life stress (ELS) is a significant risk factor for major depressive disorder (MDD) in adults. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies using face emotion processing paradigms have found altered blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) responses in the cortico-limbic network both in individuals exposed to ELS and in patients with MDD. Thus, early life stress may have a long-lasting impact on brain areas responsible for the processing of socio-affective cues. Objectives By applying a facial emotion recognition (FER) fMRI paradigm, we examined the long-term effect of childhood adversity on brain activity in MDD patients with and without ELS. Methods MDD patients without ELS (MDD, N=19), those with ELS (MDD+ELS, N=21), and healthy controls (HC, N=21) matched for age, sex, and intelligence quotient underwent fMRI scanning while performing a block design FER task with faces expressing negative emotions. The severity of ELS was assessed with the 28-item Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Results Both MDD and MDD+ELS patients were slightly impaired in recognizing sad faces. Statistical analysis of brain activity found that MDD+ELS patients had significantly reduced negative BOLD responses in the right anterior paracingulate gyrus, subcallosal cortex accumbens compared to HCs. Moreover, the MDD+ELS group had a significantly increased negative BOLD signal in the right postcentral and precentral gyri relative to the HC group. MDD+ELS patients had reduced negative BOLD response in their anterior paracingulate gyrus compared to the MDD group. Conclusions Our results support that adult MDD patients with significant ELS are impaired in facial emotion recognition and they display functional alterations in the frontostriatal circuits. Disclosure This work was financially supported by the Hungarian Brain Research Program (2017-1.2.1-NKP-2017-00002)

Keywords

• early life stress
• functional MRI
• facial emotion recognition
• major depressive disorder