Explorer Risk for depression and neural responses to fearful facial expressions of emotion

Background: Depression is associated with neural abnormalities in emotional processing. Aims: This study explored whether these abnormalities underlie risk for depression. Methods: We compared the neural responses of high-risk and low-risk never-depressed volunteers during the presentation of fearful and happy faces using fMRI. Results: High-risk volunteers demonstrated linear increases in response in the right fusiform gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus to expressions of increasing fear while low-risk volunteers demonstrated the opposite effect. High-risk volunteers also displayed greater responses in the right amygdala, cerebellum, left middle frontal and bilateral parietal gyri to medium levels of fearful vs. happy expressions. Conclusions: Risk for depression is associated with enhanced neural responses to fearful facial expressions similar to those observed in acute depression. Declaration of Interest is listed at the end of the article.