Perceptual Asymmetry Differences Between Major Depression With or Without a Comorbid Anxiety Disorder: A Dichotic Listening Study

Gerard E. Bruder^a, Jonathan E. Stewart^a, Frederic M. Quitkin^a, Bruce E. Wexler^b, Lawrence H. Price^c

^a New York State Psychiatric Institute
^b Yale University
^c Brown University

Abstract

Predictions that anxious and nonanxious depression would differ in perceptual asymmetry (PA), as well as in sensitivity for perceiving emotional words, were evaluated using dichotic listening tasks. A total of 149 patients having a major depressive disorder (51 with and 98 without an anxiety disorder) and 57 healthy controls were tested on fused-word and complex tone tasks. The anxious and nonanxious depression groups showed a consistent difference in PA across tasks, i.e., the anxious group had a larger left ear advantage for tones and a smaller right ear advantage for words when compared to the nonanxious group. There was no group difference in sensitivity for perceiving emotional words. Patients having an anxious depression appear to have a greater propensity to activate right than left hemisphere regions during auditory tasks, whereas those having a nonanxious depression have the opposite hemispheric asymmetry.