Affective startle modulation in clinical depression: Preliminary findings
Abstract
Background Modulation of the startle reflex by affective foreground stimuli was investigated in a group receiving inpatient treatment for major depressive episodes (n = 14) and an age and gender matched nondepressed group (n = 14). Methods Participants viewed 27 pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures chosen from the International Affective Picture System. Acoustic startle probes were presented during picture viewing, and participants also rated the affective qualities of the pictures. Results While ratings of the pictures were largely similar between the depressed and nondepressed groups, they displayed dissimilar patterns of startle modulation. In the nondepressed group, blinks elicited during unpleasant pictures were significantly larger than during pleasant pictures, whereas the depressed group failed to show this effect. Analyses, which separated the depressed participants into moderate and severe groups based on Beck Depression Inventory scores, revealed that while the moderately depressed group also showed a normal pattern of startle modulation, the severely depressed showed potentiated startles during the pleasant pictures. Conclusions These preliminary results suggest that severely depressed patients may respond to some pleasant stimuli as if they are aversive, possibly because such stimuli are seen as signals of frustrative nonreward.
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Depression is associated with inflexibility in several physiological response systems, including reduced BOLD signals to affective stimuli, loss of circadian HPA variability, and attenuated emotion-modulated startle.
“depressive inflexibility has been shown in a number of different physiological response systems, including reduced BOLD signals in brain circuits to affective stimuli (Canli et al., 2005), loss of the normal circadian variability in HPA axis functioning (see Burke, Davis, Otte, & Mohr, 2005), and attenuation of the emotion modulated startle response (e.g., Allen, Brennan, & Trinder, 1999).”
From Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health (2010) · cites this paper as Allen, Brennan, & Trinder, 1999
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- Authors
- Allen, N. B., Trinder, J., & Brennan, C.
- Affiliations
- The University of Melbourne (AU)
- Venue
- Biological Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1999-08
- Volume
- 46
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 542-550
- ISSN
- 0006-3223 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2017901897
- Cited by
- 214
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 12 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 3.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Biological Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- major depressive disorder, major depressive episode, acoustic startle response, unpleasant stimuli, affective picture ratings, depression severity, frustrative nonreward, inpatient depression treatment
- MeSH terms
- Acoustic Stimulation, Adult, Affect, Blinking, Major Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Severity of Illness Index, Reflex, Startle, Case-Control Studies
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