Mood Congruent Hippocampal Activation Biases: Double Dissociation of Negative & Positive Contexts in Depressed & Healthy Adults

Kirstine Carter¹, Wendy Ringe¹, Cybeles Onuegbulem¹, Kaundinya Gopinath², Richard Briggs²

Negatively-biased emotional information processing is a salient feature in depression, and the hippocampus has commonly been implicated as dysfunctional in depression. This study presents an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging technique suited to explore hippocampal response to positive (Pos) and negative (Neg) stimuli in depressed (DEP) and healthy adults (CON). Results showed left hippocampal activation: DEP>CON during Neg, and CON>DEP during Pos. These data suggest a selective role of the hippocampus in the processing of the emotional valence of external stimuli that appears to be related to the intrinsic mood state of the subject