ABSTRACT Figure 3. Results from two ANOVAs (HV > 0, MDD > 0) and a flexible factorial design (HV vs. MDD) in the unpleasant > neutral contrast are shown. The images were created using SPM8 and masked with the left inferior parietal lobe, corrected p = Participants: Medically healthy females aged years. Group 1: DSM- IV Major Depressive Disorder and an IDS-SR score > 23 (Rush et al., 2003) (n = 47); Group 2: No lifetime psychiatric disorders (n = 58). Measures: The Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Clinician and Self-Rated versions (IDS-C and IDS-SR); and an Affective Cognitive Control fMRI task. NB for the behavioral task was calculated as the difference in the mean negative ratings of unpleasant IAPS images minus the mean positive ratings of pleasant pictures. Imaging data was preprocessed using Matlab and SPM8. Preprocessing included reorientation to the AC-PC, slice timing correction, realignment, coregistration, segmentation, normalization to MNI template, resampling to 2mm isotropic, and smoothing (Gaussian kernel size=6). Background: Depressed relative to healthy adults show altered affective reactivity and cognitive control with aversive stimuli. We investigated neural activation associated with a task that interrogates the individuals’ ability to locate an ideograph in the context of affective images. Methods: We enrolled 105 medication-free, right-handed females between 17 to 63 years diagnosed with and without Major Depressive Disorder (n = 47, n = 58, respectively). All participants completed a structured clinical interview for Axis I disorders, symptom measures of depression, and an affective task during a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scan. Results: With unpleasant stimuli, participants with depression showed significantly decreased activation of the left amygdala. When activation was assessed during unpleasant versus neutral conditions, depressed participants showed significantly increased activation in the anterior cingulate cortex and the left inferior parietal lobe. Depression severity in healthy controls was found to be significantly correlated with activation in the left inferior parietal lobe under the unpleasant condition. Conclusions: Depression influences the bottom-up processing of unpleasant information and top-down processing of cognitive control (locating the ideographs), as evidenced by decreased activation of the amygdala and increased activation of the anterior cingulate and inferior parietal lobe during an affective cognitive control task. METHODS Amygdala, Anterior Cingulate Cortex, and left Inferior Frontal Parietal Lobe Activation Differences in Depressed Relative to Healthy Women Angel Buchanan, PhD 1, Jackie K. Gollan, PhD 1, Megan E. Connolly, PhD 1, Denada Hoxha, PhD 1, Lindsey Sankin, PhD 1, John Csernansky, PhD 1, Xue Wang, PhD 2 1 Northwestern University, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; 2 Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Department of Radiology Funders: Northwestern Memorial Hospital Womens Board, The Davee Family Foundation INTRODUCTION Our aim was to compare the activation in the left amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and left inferior parietal lobe (IPL) during an affective cognitive control task in participants with and without depression. Hypotheses: (1)Depressed, relative to healthy, participants will demonstrate significantly increased activation in the left amygdala, ACC and left IPL while viewing unpleasant stimuli; (2)Depression severity will correlate with the level of activation in the left amygdala, ACC, and left IPL during the presentation of unpleasant stimuli in both depressed and healthy participants. Figure 1. Results from an independent t-test (HV > 0, MDD > 0, HV vs. MDD) in the negative condition are shown below. The images were created using SPM8 and masked with the left amygdala, corrected p = References are available upon request. We welcome comments, please contact RESULTS CONCLUSIONS Relative to healthy, depressed women showed less brain activation (amygdala) with unpleasant stimuli, but increased activation (ACC and left IPL) with the unpleasant versus neutral stimuli. This suggests a relative downregulation of response to negative information with increased activation when showing the contrast between negative and neutral conditions. Within-group analyses of the healthy women demonstrated significant correlations between the left IPL and depression severity in the unpleasant condition, such that left IPL activation increased as depression severity increased. In contrast, depressed women demonstrated no significant correlations between activation in the left amygdala, ACC, or left IPL and depression severity in the unpleasant condition. Such findings suggest a link between symptoms and brain regional activation. Figure 2. Results from two ANOVAs (HV > 0, MDD > 0) and a flexible factorial design (HV vs. MDD) in the unpleasant > neutral contrast are shown. The images were created using SPM8 and masked with the ACC, corrected p = Depressed participants showing greater activation in the unpleasant versus neutral condition compared to healthy volunteers. Depressed participants showing decreased activation during the unpleasant condition compared to healthy volunteers. For all images, the color bar represents T values of positive activation.