Cited by 400Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive ProcessesNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesTreatment of Major Depression

Relationship Between Amygdala Responses to Masked Faces and Mood State and Treatment in Major Depressive Disorder

Open access
Victor, Teresa A., Furey, Maura L., Fromm, Stephen J., Öhman, Arne, Drevets, Wayne C.·2010·Archives of General Psychiatry

Abstract

CONTEXT: Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with behavioral and neurophysiological evidence of mood-congruent processing biases toward explicitly presented, emotionally valenced stimuli. However, few studies have investigated such biases toward implicitly presented stimuli. OBJECTIVE: To investigate differential amygdala responses to sad, happy, and neutral faces presented below the level of explicit conscious awareness using a backward masking task in unmedicated participants with MDD and healthy controls (HCs). DESIGN: Initial cross-sectional design followed by a longitudinal treatment trial using functional magnetic resonance imaging. SETTING: Psychiatric outpatient clinic at the National Institute of Mental Health. PARTICIPANTS: We studied 22 unmedicated, currently depressed people with MDD (dMDD), 16 unmedicated individuals with MDD in full remission (rMDD), and 25 HCs. INTERVENTION: Ten dMDD participants underwent 8 weeks of antidepressant treatment with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor sertraline hydrochloride. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Amygdala region-of-interest and whole-brain analyses evaluated the hemodynamic response during exposure to masked sad vs masked happy faces, to masked sad vs neutral faces, and to masked happy vs neutral faces. RESULTS: The dMDD participants showed greater amygdala responses than HCs to masked sad faces, whereas HCs showed greater amygdala responses to masked happy faces. The bias toward sad faces also was evident in rMDD participants relative to HCs and did not differ between dMDD and rMDD participants. This processing bias reversed toward the normative pattern in dMDD participants after sertraline treatment. CONCLUSIONS: Emotional-processing biases occur in amygdala responses to sad faces presented below the level of conscious awareness in dMDD or rMDD individuals and to happy faces in HCs. By influencing the salience of social stimuli, mood-congruent processing biases in the amygdala may contribute to dysfunction in conscious perceptions and social interactions in MDD. Our data suggest, however, that the negative bias resolves and a positive bias develops in patients with MDD during selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor treatment.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.144

Cites

60 of 60 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Blunted dlPFC activation has been accompanied by exaggerated amygdalar activation when processing subliminal negative stimuli.

    “Thus, blunted dlPFC activation has been accompanied by exaggerated amygdalar activation when (1) viewing and reappraising negative pictures [167], (2) processing subliminal negative stimuli [168, 169] (Fig. 4d) and negative words”

    From Prefrontal cortex and depression (2022) · cites this paper as [168]

    The Results (fMRI Results; page not provided) report greater amygdala responses to masked-sad faces in depressed participants than in healthy controls, supporting the subliminal-stimulus portion of the claim. They do not report blunted dlPFC activation accompanying that response; the reported frontal difference concerns unmasked faces. (LLM, conf=0.88)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Amygdalar hyperactivity to negative stimuli emerged in fully remitted adults with past MDD.

    “emerged in fully remitted adults with past MDD [168]”

    From Prefrontal cortex and depression (2022) · cites this paper as [168]

    The Discussion reports greater amygdala activity in fully remitted, unmedicated MDD subjects than in controls for masked-sad versus masked-happy faces. The claim omits that restriction: the same section reports no group difference for explicitly presented emotional faces, so the finding does not establish hyperactivity to negative stimuli generally. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
  • Antidepressants facilitate positive emotional stimuli processing in MDD patients and reduce the activity of negative emotions, concomitant with a normalization of amygdala activity.

    “Indeed, several meta-analyses concluded that antidepressants facilitate positive emotional stimuli processing in MDD patients and reduce the activity of negative emotions (Delaveau et al. 2011), concomitant with a normalization of amygdala activity (Chen et al. 2014; Victor et al. 2010).”
  • Acutely depressed patients consistently show enhanced recognition of sad facial expressions.

    “Enhanced recognition of sad facial expressions has also been consistently reported in acutely depressed patients.73,[143][144][145][146][147][148]”
  • Victor and colleagues found that remitted MDD patients had exaggerated amygdala responses to masked sad faces and no amygdala response to masked happy faces compared with controls.

    “A recent study by Victor and colleagues, 73 however, found that remitted patients with MDD showed exaggerated responses in the amygdala to masked sad faces and a lack of amygdalar response to masked happy faces compared with controls.”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. [18]First MB Spitzer RL Gibbon M Williams JBW Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR Axis I Disorders, Research Version, Patient Edition (SCID-I/P) New York, NY New York State Psychiatric Institute, Biometrics Research 2002
  2. [31]Mai JK Assheuer J Paxinos G Atlas of the Human Brain 2 San Diego, CA Academic Press 2003

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Victor, T. A., Furey, M. L., Fromm, S. J., Öhman, A., & Drevets, W. C.
Affiliations
  • National Institutes of Health (US)
  • Karolinska Institutet (SE)
Venue
Archives of General Psychiatry
Published
2010-11-01
Volume
67
Issue
11
Pages
1128
ISSN
0003-990X (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2060926272
Cited by
400
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 48 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 26 · 2015: 41 · 2014: 30 · 2013: 39 · 2012: 36
FWCI
42.44
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Archives of General Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
  • National Institutes of Health (Z99 MH999999)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (Z01MH002792)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
Keywords
major depressive disorder, amygdala, masked faces, backward masking, implicit emotional processing, sertraline, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, remitted depression, antidepressant response
MeSH terms
Adult, Affect, Amygdala, Awareness, Brain Mapping, Major Depressive Disorder, Emotions, Facial Expression, Female, Form Perception, Happiness, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Perceptual Masking, Social Perception, Wechsler Scales, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, Sertraline

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review