Development of Cognitive and Imaging Biomarkers Predicting Risk of Self-Blaming Bias and Recurrence in Major Depressio

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Depression is the leading cause of disability world-wide. This is mainly because 50% of people who have had one phase of depression in their life will develop further phases in the future. One explanation is that blaming oneself excessively for failures makes people more vulnerable for developing depression. Recently, we have been able to identify the parts of the brain involved in self-blaming feelings such as guilt. In a preliminary study, we have demonstrated that people with a history of depression, but currently free of symptoms, show abnormalities in the cross-talk within the brain network involved in self-blaming feelings compared with people who have never had depression. In the proposed project we will study people who have fully recovered from a phase of depression and who have stopped their medication as currently recommended by clinical guidelines. We will investigate for the first time, whether the degree of abnormalities in this self-blame-related brain network can predict the risk of developing another depressive phase within the next year. If successful, this project will help to understand what brain changes underlie the tendency to repeatedly develop depression and lead to new approaches to prevention and treatment.