Which factors evoke and maintain depressive symptoms? A multimethodal imaging study investigating the association of personality traits and specific symptoms with neurofunctional and neurochemical alterations.

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Simone Grimm
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology ; General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2015 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 268130384

Despite considerable progress in recent years, our understanding of pathophysiological substrates of depression is still limited. In order to develop more effective interventions it is crucial to learn more aboutcausal and maintaining mechanisms and the ways in which these can be addressed. Patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) have consistently been found to show increased activity during resting state,decreased task- related deactivation in cortical midline regions and asymmetric activation in lateral prefrontal cortex during emotional and cognitive processing. Furthermore, previous studies reported increased insula activity in MDD patients. These changes might be modulated by glutamatergic neurotransmission and represent a functional correlate of specific emotional and cognitive symptoms of MDD such as negativeaffective bias, negative ruminations, negative self- focus and increased interoceptive awareness. The proposed project aims to investigate neural activity during emotional- cognitive interaction and interoceptive awareness in relation to glutamate concentrations within depression- relevant regions in healthy subjects with increased temperamental vulnerability for MDD, subjects with a current depressive episode and subjects with a chronic course of depression. We aim to demonstrate (a) that increased self- focus and negative affective bias are associated with asymmetric activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and decreased deactivation in cortical midline regions during emotional- cognitive interaction, (b) that interoceptive awareness is associated with increased insula activity, (c) that changes in glutamate concentrations are region- specific and modulate activity during emotional- cognitive interaction and interoceptive awareness, (d) that region- specific increases in glutamate concentration persist in chronic depression and might eventually lead to morphological changes, and (e) that healthy subjects with increased temperamental vulnerabilities show similar changes in functional activity and glutamatergic neurotransmission as patients with a current depressive episode.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Malek Bajbouj