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World J Psychiatry. Nov 19, 2026; 16(11): 123570
Published online Nov 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.123570
Published online Nov 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.123570
Neural correlates of stereotype processing in major depressive disorder: An event-related potential study
Miao Li, Department of Psychiatry, Wuxi Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Wuxi 214071, Jiangsu Province, China
Zhen-He Zhou, Xiao-Hong Liu, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-corresponding authors: Zhen-He Zhou and Xiao-Hong Liu.
Author contributions: Li M wrote the manuscript, contributed to collecting the data and performing the statistical analysis; Zhou ZH and Liu XH were responsible for study design, they contributed equally to this article, they are the co-corresponding authors of this manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
AI contribution statement: Portions of this manuscript were edited using AI tools solely for language refinement. The authors carefully reviewed and verified all AI-assisted outputs and take full responsibility for the scientific content of the manuscript.
Supported by Wuxi Taihu Talent Project, No. WXTTP 2021.
Institutional review board statement: This study received approval from the Ethics Committee of the Affiliated Wuxi Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University (Approval No. WXMHCIRB2022 LLky012).
Informed consent statement: All participants included in this study signed an informed consent form prior to enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Corresponding author: Zhen-He Zhou, MD, PhD, Chief Physician, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, No. 156 Qianrong Road, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China. zhouzh@jiangnan.edu.cn
Received: May 22, 2026
Revised: June 21, 2026
Accepted: August 10, 2026
Published online: November 19, 2026
Processing time: 160 Days and 23.1 Hours
Revised: June 21, 2026
Accepted: August 10, 2026
Published online: November 19, 2026
Processing time: 160 Days and 23.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study combined the gender stereotype task paradigm with event-related potential technology to explore stereotype processing in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and whether there are different neural mechanisms between patients with MDD and healthy individuals. We found that processing counterstereotypical information may require greater cognitive resources, as reflected by an enhanced N170 effect, particularly in males. Patients with MDD may also need additional cognitive resources to integrate counter-stereotypical information, as reflected by an enhanced N400 effect, which appears to be more pronounced with longer illness duration.