Age and gender modulate the neural circuitry supporting facial emotion processing in adults with major depressive disorder

Objectives: Emotion processing, supported by frontolimbic circuitry known to be sensitive to the effects of aging, is a relatively understudied cognitive-emotional domain in geriatric depression. Some evidence suggests that the neurophysiological disruption observed in emotion processing among adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) may be modulated by both gender and age. Therefore, the present study investigated the effects of gender and age on the neural circuitry supporting emotion processing in MDD.

Design: Cross-sectional comparison of fMRI signal during performance of an emotion processing task.

Setting: Outpatient university setting.

Participants: One hundred adults recruited by MDD status, gender, and age.

Measurements: Participants underwent fMRI while completing the Facial Emotion Perception Test. They viewed photographs of faces and categorized the emotion perceived. Contrast for fMRI was of face perception minus animal identification blocks.

Results: Effects of depression were observed in precuneus and effects of age in a number of frontolimbic regions. Three-way interactions were present between MDD status, gender, and age in regions pertinent to emotion processing, including frontal, limbic, and basal ganglia. Young women with MDD and older men with MDD exhibited hyperactivation in these regions compared with their respective same-gender healthy comparison (HC) counterparts. In contrast, older women and younger men with MDD exhibited hypoactivation compared to their respective same-gender HC counterparts.

Conclusions: This the first study to report gender- and age-specific differences in emotion processing circuitry in MDD. Gender-differential mechanisms may underlie cognitive-emotional disruption in older adults with MDD. The present findings have implications for improved probes into the heterogeneity of the MDD syndrome.