Hard to look on the bright side: Neural correlates of impaired emotion regulation in depressed youth

Abstract

The cognitive regulation of emotion is impaired in major depressive disorder and has been linked to an imbalance of prefrontal- subcortical brain activity. Despite suggestions that this relationship represents a neurodevelopmental marker of depression, few studies have examined the neural correlates of emotion regulation in depressed youth.We combined a 'cognitive reappraisal' paradigm with functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the neural correlates of emotional regulation in a large sample of non-medicated depressed adolescents and young adults (n=53) and healthy controls (n=64). As compared with healthy controls, young people with depression were less able to reduce negative affec..