Markers of positive affect and brain state synchrony discriminate melancholic from non-melancholic depression using naturalistic stimuli

作者：Philip Mosley, J. van der Meer, Lachlan Hamilton, Jürgen Fripp, Stephen Parker, Jayson Jeganathan, Michael Breakspear, Richard Parker, Rebecca Holland, Brittany L. Mitchell, Enda M. Byrne, Ian B. Hickie, Sarah E. Medland, Nicholas G. Martin, Luca Cocchi · 发表于：Molecular Psychiatry · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1038/s41380-024-02699-y · 被引用次数：11 · 研究领域：Functional Brain Connectivity Studies、Neural dynamics and brain function、Neuroscience and Neuropharmacology Research

Melancholia has been proposed as a qualitatively distinct depressive subtype associated with a characteristic symptom profile (psychomotor retardation, profound anhedonia) and a better response to biological therapies. Existing work has suggested that individuals with melancholia are blunted in their display of positive emotions and differ in their neural response to emotionally evocative stimuli. Here, we unify these brain and behavioural findings amongst a carefully phenotyped group of seventy depressed participants, drawn from an established Australian database (the Australian Genetics of Depression Study) and further enriched for melancholia (high ratings of psychomotor retardation and anhedonia). Melancholic (n = 30) or non-melancholic status (n = 40) was defined using a semi-structured interview (the Sydney Melancholia Prototype Index). Complex facial expressions were captured whilst participants watched a movie clip of a comedian and classified using a machine learning algorithm. Subsequently, the dynamics of sequential changes in brain activity were modelled during the viewing of an emotionally evocative movie in the MRI scanner. We found a quantitative reduction in positive facial expressivity amongst participants with melancholia, combined with differences in the synchronous expression of brain states during positive epochs of the movie. In non-melancholic depression, the display of positive affect was inversely related to the activity of cerebellar regions implicat...