Emotion-cognition dysregulation in major depression: Multidimensional biases, neural circuit imbalance, and translational opportunities

Figure 2 Neural circuit imbalance model of emotion-cognition dysfunction in major depressive disorder. This model delineates three convergent neural disruptions and their integrative pathways leading to clinical dysfunction. The core disruptions are: (1) Limbic hyperreactivity (amygdala, insula), which intensifies the bottom-up processing of negative salience; (2) Prefrontal regulatory deficits (dorsolateral, ventromedial, and anterior cingulate cortices), which compromise top-down cognitive control; and (3) Large-scale network dysregulation, manifesting as default mode network hyperconnectivity and weakened coupling between the frontoparietal control network and salience network. vmPFC: Ventromedial prefrontal cortex; dlPFC: Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; ACC: Anterior cingulate cortex; DMN: Default mode network; FPCN: Frontoparietal control network; SN: Salience network; MDD: Major depressive disorder.