Gender-specific disruptions in emotion processing in younger adults with depression

One of the principal theories regarding the biological basis of major depressive disorder (MDD) implicates a dysregulation of emotion-processing circuitry. Gender differences in how emotions are processed and relative experience with emotion processing might help to explain some of the disparities in the prevalence of MDD between women and men. This study sought to explore how gender and depression status relate to emotion processing.

This study employed a 2 (MDD status) x 2 (gender) factorial design to explore differences in classifications of posed facial emotional expressions (N=151).

For errors, there was an interaction between gender and depression status. Women with MDD made more errors than did nondepressed women and men with MDD, particularly for fearful and sad stimuli (Ps <.02), which they were likely to misinterpret as angry (Ps <.04). There was also an interaction of diagnosis and gender for response cost for negative stimuli, with significantly greater interference from negative faces present in women with MDD compared to nondepressed women (P=.01). Men with MDD, conversely, performed similarly to control men (P=.61).

These results provide novel and intriguing evidence that depression in younger adults (<35 years) differentially disrupts emotion processing in women as compared to men. This interaction could be driven by neurobiological and social learning mechanisms, or interactions between them, and may underlie differences in the prevalence of depression in women and men.