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Affective startle modulation in clinical depression: preliminary findings
N B Allen1, J Trinder, C Brennan
1Department of Psychology, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia.
Biological Psychiatry
|August 25, 1999
Summary
Severely depressed individuals showed altered startle reflex responses to emotional pictures. Unlike healthy controls, they did not show enhanced startle to unpleasant images, and even showed potentiation to pleasant ones.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychiatry
Background:
- Investigated startle reflex modulation by affective stimuli in major depressive episodes.
- Compared inpatient depressed individuals (n=14) with age/gender-matched controls (n=14).
Purpose of the Study:
- To examine how emotional stimuli affect the startle reflex in major depressive disorder.
- To differentiate startle response patterns between depressed and non-depressed individuals.
Main Methods:
- Participants viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant International Affective Picture System images.
- Acoustic startle probes measured blink responses during picture viewing.
- Participants rated the affective valence of the pictures.
Main Results:
- Non-depressed group showed larger startle blinks to unpleasant vs. pleasant pictures.
- Depressed group did not show this differential startle modulation.
- Severely depressed participants exhibited potentiated startles to pleasant pictures.
Conclusions:
- Severely depressed patients may perceive pleasant stimuli as aversive.
- This altered response might relate to stimuli signaling "frustrative nonreward".