Biological Psychiatry, 2020, 87(9), S383. [Presented at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Society of Biological Psychiatry (SoBP) in New York, NY, April 30 - May 2, 2020.]
Dissociating depression and anxiety with right-lateralized emotional processing: A study using visual ERPs and auditory perceptual asymmetries
Lidia Wong1, Priya Wickramaratne1,2, Daniel M. Alschuler1, Myrna M. Weissman1,2, Gerard E. Bruder2, Jürgen Kayser1,2
1New York State Psychiatric Institute; 2Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
Abstract
Background: In two prior studies, individuals with a lifetime history of major depressive disorder (MDD) showed evidence of impaired emotional processing compared to healthy controls. During a dichotic emotional recognition test, they had an abnormal perceptual asymmetry (smaller left ear/right hemisphere advantage [LEA/RH] for sad versus neutral sounds). During an emotional hemifield task, they had a reduced late positive potential (P3 source) for negative than neutral pictures over right temporoparietal regions. We explored how right-lateralized emotional processing in auditory and visual modalities relates to the clinical diagnosis of mood disorders. Methods: A multinomial logistic regression investigated whether ERP and dichotic measures of emotional recognition were predictors of a lifetime history of MDD, anxiety disorder (AD), or comorbidity of both. For 112 subjects, we calculated the standardized difference scores for emotional processing to auditory (LEA sad-neutral) and visual (RH P3 source negativeneutral) stimuli. Results: A significant interaction between ERP and dichotic listening (DL) measures (OR = 2.499, p = .011) predicted MDD but not AD or comorbidity; however, comorbidity was separately predicted by ERP (OR = 0.457, p = .013) and DL (OR = 0.527, p = .042) alone. Follow-up analyses revealed increased probabilities of MDD at low levels of both predictors (lack of emotional differentiation), and interestingly also at high levels of both predictors (heightened arousal to emotional stimuli across modalities). Conclusions: Findings suggest that reduced or heightened right-lateralized emotional responsivity to negative stimuli, when occurring in both visual and auditory domains, is uniquely associated with a diagnosis of MDD. However, comorbidity of MDD and AD is linked to deficits of emotional processing in either domain.
Key Words: Depression, Anxiety, Emotional Lateralization, ERPs, Dichotic Listening
[Supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (MH36197)].
doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.02.980