Persistent anhedonic dysregulation of positive social emotion processing in major depression

Persistent anhedonic dysregulation of positive social emotion processing in major depression Научная публикация

Журнал

Journal of Affective Disorders
ISSN: 0165-0327

Вых. Данные

Год: 2026, Том: 412, Номер статьи : 122049, Страниц : 12 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2026.122049

Ключевые слова

Depression, MDD, Social anhedonia, Positive social, Emotion regulation, Attenuation, Inhibition, Neuroimaging, fMRI

Авторы

Bezmaternykh Dmitriy D. ^1,2 , Melnikov Mikhail Ye. ³ , Petrovskiy Evgeny D. ⁴ , Mazhirina Ksenia G. ¹ , Savelov Andrey A. ⁴ , Natarova Kira A. ⁵ , Hu Qiang ⁶ , Wang Jie ⁷ , Wang Jijun ⁸ , Sambataro Fabio ^9,10,11 , Vuilleumier Patrik ^12,13 , Shtark Mark B. ¹ , Koush Yury ^2,14

Организации

1	Institute of Molecular Biology and Biophysics, Federal Research Center of Fundamental and Translational Medicine, Novosibirsk, Russia
2	Center for Bio- and Medical Technologies, Moscow, Russia
3	Department of Biophysics, Biomedicine, and Neuroscience, Faculty of Biology and Biotechnology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
4	International Tomography Center SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russia
5	International Institute of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Novosibirsk, Russia
6	Department of Psychiatry, Wuhu Hospital of Anding Hospital (The Fourth People's Hospital of Wuhu), Anhui, China
7	Songjiang Hospital and Songjiang Research Institute, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Emotions and Affective Disorders, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
8	Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
9	Department of Neuroscience (DNS), University of Padova, Padua, Italy
10	Padova Neuroscience Center, University of Padova, Padua, Italy
11	Padua University Hospital, UOC Psychiatry 3, Padua, Italy
12	Department of Neuroscience, Medical School, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
13	Swiss Center of Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Campus Biotech, Geneva, Switzerland
14	Mental-health clinic No 1 named after N.A. Alexeev, Moscow, Russia

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by core anhedonic symptoms, including pervasive dampening of positive responsiveness and social interactions mediated by the habitual avoidance of strategies involving engagement with positive emotions. Current MDD treatments primarily aim at rebalancing the regulation of negative emotions and at modulating limbic activity. Understanding neural deficits in positive social regulation is critical for developing therapeutic interventions for MDD and social anhedonia symptoms. We used fMRI to assess positive social emotion upregulation in 40 women, comprising 20 medicated patients with MDD and matched healthy controls. Ecologically valid conditions with robust activation patterns were designed to investigate disruptions within prefrontal emotion regulation circuits by contrasting active upregulation of positive social situations with passive viewing of neutral social situations. We assessed connectivity network models using a probabilistic empirical Bayes approach. Although patients rated positive social pictures lower in valence and had greater social anhedonia scores, we identified similar activity in bilateral amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) during upregulation. However, superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and posterior right ventrolateral PFC (prvlPFC) were hypoactive, while dorsolateral PFC and anterior right vlPFC (arvlPFC) were hyperactive. We unveiled impaired cognitive control pathways from SFG and dorsolateral PFC to arvlPFC, between functional subdivisions of vlPFC, and contextual modulation by social appraisal. Our preliminary findings indicate that despite medicated patients having proper evaluation of sociality and stabilized limbic responses, their positive social responsiveness, top-down upregulation and appraisal efficacy remained deficient. These findings complement neurobiological bases underlying aberrant positive social emotion upregulation and appraisal processes.

Bezmaternykh D.D. , Melnikov M.Y. , Petrovskiy E.D. , Mazhirina K.G. , Savelov A.A. , Natarova K.A. , Hu Q. , Wang J. , Wang J. , Sambataro F. , Vuilleumier P. , Shtark M.B. , Koush Y.
Persistent anhedonic dysregulation of positive social emotion processing in major depression
Journal of Affective Disorders. 2026. V.412. 122049 :1-12. DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2026.122049 WOS Scopus OpenAlex

Поступила в редакцию:	18 мар. 2026 г.
Принята к публикации:	27 мая 2026 г.
Опубликована online:	29 мая 2026 г.
Опубликована в печати:	1 июн. 2026 г.

≡ Web of science:	WOS:001787817700001
≡ Scopus:	2-s2.0-105040596747
≡ OpenAlex:	W7162753324