Abstract #3381

Delayed Amygdala Response to Positive Emotional Stimuli in Major Depressive Disorder

Qingwei Li^1,2, Chunbo Li³, Wenyuan Wu¹, Yuan Shen¹, Peijun Wang⁴, Gonghua Dai⁴, Xuchu Weng⁵, Yijun Liu²

¹Department of Psychiatry, Tongji Hospital of Tongji University, Shanghai, China; ²Departments of Psychiatry and neuroscience, McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA; ³Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai, China; ⁴Department of Radiology, Tongji Hospital of Tongji University, Shanghai, China; ⁵Laboratory of Brain High Function, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academic of Science, Beijing, China

The time course of the amygdala response may be relevant to the blunted behavioral response to emotional stimuli of major depressive disorder (MDD). Functional magnetic resonance imaging was explored to the emotional pictures processing in 12 first-episode unmedicated MDD subjects and 13 healthy controls (HC). Analyses focused on the temporal dynamics of the BOLD signal change in the amygdala across blocks of positive, neutral and negative emotional pictures. MDD Individuals showed delayed response to positive emotion and blunted response to negative emotional stimuli in the amygdala, which provided an explanation of the loss of interest and pleasure in MDD.