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

抑郁症是世界范围内导致残疾的主要原因。这主要是因为50%的人在生活中经历了一个阶段的抑郁，未来会发展成进一步的阶段。一种解释是，过度地将失败归咎于自己会让人们更容易患上抑郁症。最近，我们已经能够识别出大脑中涉及内疚等自责情绪的部分。在一项初步研究中，我们已经证明，与从未患过抑郁症的人相比，有抑郁症史但目前没有症状的人，与从未患过抑郁症的人相比，在涉及自责情绪的大脑网络中的串扰表现出异常。在拟议的项目中，我们将研究那些完全从抑郁状态中恢复并按照目前临床指南的建议停止服药的人。我们将首次调查，这个自责相关的大脑网络中的异常程度是否可以预测明年出现另一个抑郁阶段的风险。如果成功，这个项目将有助于了解大脑的变化是什么导致反复发展抑郁症的趋势，并导致新的预防和治疗方法。

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.