Temporal Interactions between Neural Proxies forMemory Recall, Negative Affect, and EmotionRegulation in Major...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychiatry
• Cognitive Psychology

Background:

• Major depressive disorder (MDD) involves impaired emotion regulation (ER) and autobiographical memory.
• The real-time interaction between these deficits and mood disturbances in MDD remains unclear.
• Machine learning-based neural signatures offer a method to continuously quantify negative affect (NA), ER, and memory engagement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the dynamic interplay between negative affect, emotion regulation, and autobiographical memory in unmedicated individuals with MDD.
• To examine how hippocampal activity during memory recall, immersion, and distancing predicts changes in negative affect and emotion regulation.
• To identify potential neural mechanisms underlying mood disturbances in MDD related to memory processing and emotion regulation.

Main Methods:

• Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used in unmedicated individuals with MDD (N=45) and healthy volunteers (HV; N=38).
• Participants completed a task involving recalling, immersing into, and distancing from negative autobiographical memories.
• Machine learning signatures (PINES for NA, ERS for ER) quantified real-time affect and regulation, while hippocampal activity indexed memory engagement.

Main Results:

• Across groups, greater hippocampal activity during memory recall and immersion predicted increased negative affect (PINES).
• In healthy volunteers, hippocampal activity during distancing predicted increased emotion regulation (ERS) but not negative affect.
• In MDD, hippocampal activity during distancing predicted increased negative affect (PINES) but not emotion regulation (ERS), indicating a disrupted link.

Conclusions:

• MDD is characterized by an abnormal real-time relationship between memory engagement and emotion regulation.
• Healthy individuals showed reduced negative affect linkage and increased ER following memory reactivation, unlike those with MDD.
• Deficits in engaging ER and modulating negative affect after recalling negative memories may contribute to MDD mood disturbances and represent therapeutic targets.