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Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation

According to the emotion-context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis, major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a diminished ability to react emotionally to positive stimuli and with blunting of defensive responses to threat. That defensive responses are blunted in MDD seems inconsistent with th...

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Autores principales: Grillon, Christian, Franco-Chaves, Jose A., Mateus, Camilo F., Ionescu, Dawn F., Zarate, Carlos A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738594/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23951057
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0070969
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author Grillon, Christian
Franco-Chaves, Jose A.
Mateus, Camilo F.
Ionescu, Dawn F.
Zarate, Carlos A.
author_facet Grillon, Christian
Franco-Chaves, Jose A.
Mateus, Camilo F.
Ionescu, Dawn F.
Zarate, Carlos A.
author_sort Grillon, Christian
collection PubMed
description According to the emotion-context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis, major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a diminished ability to react emotionally to positive stimuli and with blunting of defensive responses to threat. That defensive responses are blunted in MDD seems inconsistent with the conceptualization and diagnostic nosology of MDD. The present study tested the ECI hypothesis in MDD using a threat of shock paradigm. Twenty-eight patients with MDD (35.5±10.4 years) were compared with 28 controls (35.1±7.4 years). Participants were exposed to three conditions: no shock, predictable shock, and unpredictable shock. Startle magnitude was used to assess defensive responses. Inconsistent with the ECI hypothesis, startle potentiation to predictable and unpredictable shock was not reduced in the MDD group. Rather, MDD patients showed elevated startle throughout testing as well as increased contextual anxiety during the placement of the shock electrodes and in the predictable condition. A regression analysis indicated that illness duration and Beck depression inventory scores explained 37% (p<.005) of the variance in patients’ startle reactivity. MDD is not associated with emotional blunting but rather enhanced defensive reactivity during anticipation of harm. These results do not support a strong version of the ECI hypothesis. Understanding the nature of stimuli or situations that lead to blunted or enhanced defensive reactivity will provide better insight into dysfunctional emotional experience in MDD.
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spelling pubmed-37385942013-08-15 Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation Grillon, Christian Franco-Chaves, Jose A. Mateus, Camilo F. Ionescu, Dawn F. Zarate, Carlos A. PLoS One Research Article According to the emotion-context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis, major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a diminished ability to react emotionally to positive stimuli and with blunting of defensive responses to threat. That defensive responses are blunted in MDD seems inconsistent with the conceptualization and diagnostic nosology of MDD. The present study tested the ECI hypothesis in MDD using a threat of shock paradigm. Twenty-eight patients with MDD (35.5±10.4 years) were compared with 28 controls (35.1±7.4 years). Participants were exposed to three conditions: no shock, predictable shock, and unpredictable shock. Startle magnitude was used to assess defensive responses. Inconsistent with the ECI hypothesis, startle potentiation to predictable and unpredictable shock was not reduced in the MDD group. Rather, MDD patients showed elevated startle throughout testing as well as increased contextual anxiety during the placement of the shock electrodes and in the predictable condition. A regression analysis indicated that illness duration and Beck depression inventory scores explained 37% (p<.005) of the variance in patients’ startle reactivity. MDD is not associated with emotional blunting but rather enhanced defensive reactivity during anticipation of harm. These results do not support a strong version of the ECI hypothesis. Understanding the nature of stimuli or situations that lead to blunted or enhanced defensive reactivity will provide better insight into dysfunctional emotional experience in MDD. Public Library of Science 2013-08-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3738594/ /pubmed/23951057 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0070969 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain declaration, which stipulates that, once placed in the public domain, this work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
spellingShingle Research Article
Grillon, Christian
Franco-Chaves, Jose A.
Mateus, Camilo F.
Ionescu, Dawn F.
Zarate, Carlos A.
Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation
title Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation
title_full Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation
title_fullStr Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation
title_full_unstemmed Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation
title_short Major Depression Is Not Associated with Blunting of Aversive Responses; Evidence for Enhanced Anxious Anticipation
title_sort major depression is not associated with blunting of aversive responses; evidence for enhanced anxious anticipation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3738594/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23951057
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0070969
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