What is supposed to be their role? The most ambitious restingstate model of major depressive disorder (Northoff et al. 2011) does not aim at “denosologizing” the category. Rather, it preserves major depressive disorder (MDD) in all its heterogeneity—at the level of its symptoms, the affects it encompasses (anxiety, sadness, grief, panic, pain), the bodily systems it involves (from the vegetative and endocrine to the cognitive), the neuroanatomical regions observed to be “abnormal” in the condition, and the biochemistry pertaining to each of those systems and regions.
MDD turns out in this model to be characterized by a subcortical-cortical imbalance, with resting-state hyperactivity in some regions and hypoactivity in others.
Abstract
Background
To evaluate the literature pertaining to the use of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in Major Depression (MD).
Methods
A search for papers published in English was conducted using MedLine, Embase, PsycINFO, OvidSP, and ScienceDirect with the following words: resting state, depression, MRI, affective, and default-mode.
Results
The findings from 16 resting-state fMRI studies on MD are tabulated. Some common findings are discussed in further detail.
Conclusion
The use of resting-state fMRI in MD research has yielded a number of significant findings that provide the basis for understanding the pathophysiology of depressive symptoms. Of particular note and deserving of further research are the roles of the cortico-limbic mood regulating circuit (MRC) and the interaction between task-positive and task-negative networks in MD. There is increasing interest in the use of resting-state fMRI in the study of psychiatric conditions, and continued improvement in technique and methodology will prove valuable in future research.
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Image taken from the article by Veer et al., linked below.
If you'd like to read the other articles mentioned by Vidal and Ortega, here they are:
Inspired by the homonymous book by Fernando Vidal and Francisco Ortega, this timespace presents the authors' genealogy of the cerebral subject and the influence of the neurological discourse in human sciences, mental health and culture.
