2011 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Brain imaging studies on neural basis of self reference in depression

Research Project

Project/Area Number	21591518
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Psychiatric science
Research Institution	Hiroshima University
Principal Investigator	OKAMOTO Yasumasa 広島大学, 大学院・医歯薬学総合研究科, 講師 (70314763)
Project Period (FY)	2009 – 2011
Keywords	自己 / 認知 / 情動 / うつ病 / fMRI
Research Abstract	Depression is characterized by enhanced self-referential processing of negative emotional stimuli. Imaging studies have suggested that activation of both the medial prefrontal(MPFC) and anterior cingulate cortices(ACC) is associated with self-referential processing. However, whether this pattern of activation occurs in depressed individuals during the self-referential processing of the emotional stimuli had not been investigated to date. Thus, we have studied some experiments and got some following results. Compared with the normal controls, the depressed patients showed hyperactivity in the MPFC and the ACC during the self-referential processing of negative words. Activity in the MPFC and the ACC during self-referential processing of negative stimuli were decreased in the depressive patients following CBT. These results showed that improvement of depressive symptoms was associated with attenuation of the MPFC and the ACC activation during self-referential processing of negative emotion.