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©2013 Baishideng. All rights reserved.
Music in depression: Neural correlates of emotional experience in remitted depression
Sabine Aust, Karin Filip, Stefan Koelsch, Simone Grimm, Malek Bajbouj, Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Karin Filip, Department of Medicine, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 35392 Giessen, Germany
Sabine Aust, Simone Grimm, Malek Bajbouj, Department of Psychiatry, Charité University Medicine Berlin, Campus Benjamin Franklin, 14150 Berlin, Germany
Author contributions: Aust S, Koelsch S, Grimm S and Bajbouj M designed the study; Aust S and Filip K collected and analyzed the data; Aust S, Filip K, Koelsch S and Bajbouj M interpreted the data; Aust S and Bajbouj M wrote the article, which Filip K, Koelsch S and Grimm S critically reviewed; all authors approved its publication.
Supported by German Research Foundation (Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion”, EXC302 and KFO247)
Correspondence to: Sabine Aust, Dipl.-Psych., Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion” and Dahlem Institute for Neuroimaging of Emotion, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195 Berlin, Germany. sabine.aust@fu-berlin.de
Telephone: +49-30-83858412 Fax: +49-30-83852887
Received: September 6, 2012
Revised: February 25, 2013
Accepted: March 15, 2013
Published online: June 22, 2013
Revised: February 25, 2013
Accepted: March 15, 2013
Published online: June 22, 2013
Core Tip
Core tip: A profound disturbance of emotional experiences is one of the key symptoms of major depressive disorder. Therefore, we investigated alterations in neural correlates of emotional experiences in individuals at risk for major depression to identify potential vulnerability markers for depression. Pleasant and unpleasant emotional states were induced via music and emotional faces while recording brain responses via functional magnetic resonance imaging. Our study shows that pregenual anterior cingulate cortex reactivity in response to emotional stimuli can serve as a “neural marker” for depression vulnerability - a finding that, if replicated, could be important for innovations in early diagnosis or therapy.