Free-viewing gaze patterns reveal a mood-congruency bias in MDD during an affective fMRI/eye-tracking task.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been related to abnormal amygdala activity during emotional face processing. However, a recent large-scale study (n = 28,638) found no such correlation, which is probably due to the low precision of fMRI measurements. To address this issue, we used simultaneous fMRI and eye-tracking measurements during a commonly employed emotional face recognition task.

Pupil Dilation during Reward Anticipation Is Correlated to Depressive Symptom Load in Patients with Major Depressive Disorder.

Depression is a debilitating disorder with high prevalence and socioeconomic cost, but the brain-physiological processes that are altered during depressive states are not well understood. Here, we build on recent findings in macaques that indicate a direct causal relationship between pupil dilation and anterior cingulate cortex mediated arousal during anticipation of reward. We translated these findings to human subjects with concomitant pupillometry/fMRI in a sample of unmedicated participants diagnosed with major depression and healthy controls.

Smaller hippocampal CA1 subfield volume in posttraumatic stress disorder.

Background: Smaller hippocampal volume in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) represents the most consistently reported structural alteration in the brain. Subfields of the hippocampus play distinct roles in encoding and processing of memories, which are disrupted in PTSD. We examined PTSD-associated alterations in 12 hippocampal subfields in relation to global hippocampal shape, and clinical features.

The neuronal transporter gene SLC6A15 confers risk to major depression.

Major depression (MD) is one of the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and a leading cause of loss in work productivity. A combination of genetic and environmental risk factors probably contributes to MD. We present data from a genome-wide association study revealing a neuron-specific neutral amino acid transporter (SLC6A15) as a susceptibility gene for MD.

Thyroid hormone transporter genes and grey matter changes in patients with major depressive disorder and healthy controls.

Objective: Several studies have established links between thyroid gland dysfunction and mood disorders, in particular major depressive disorder (MDD). Preliminary evidence also suggests that thyroid hormone gene variants influence grey matter (GM) volume, which is reportedly altered in patients with MDD. This study tested for associations of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in two thyroid hormone transporter genes with regional GM volume differences in a large sample population of patients with recurrent MDD and healthy volunteers.