Real-Time Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Amygdala Neurofeedback Changes Positive Information Processing in Major Depressive Disorder.

BACKGROUND: In participants with major depressive disorder who are trained to upregulate their amygdalar hemodynamic responses during positive autobiographical memory recall with real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging neurofeedback (rtfMRI-nf) training, depressive symptoms diminish. This study tested whether amygdalar rtfMRI-nf also changes emotional processing of positive and negative stimuli in a variety of behavioral and imaging tasks.

METHODS: Patients with major depressive disorder completed two rtfMRI-nf sessions (18 received amygdalar rtfMRI-nf, 16 received control parietal rtfMRI-nf). One week before and following rtfMRI-nf training, participants performed tasks measuring responses to emotionally valenced stimuli including a backward-masking task, which measures the amygdalar hemodynamic response to emotional faces presented for traditionally subliminal duration and followed by a mask, and the Emotional Test Battery in which reaction times and performance accuracy are measured during tasks involving emotional faces and words.

RESULTS: During the backward-masking task, amygdalar responses increased while viewing masked happy faces but decreased to masked sad faces in the experimental versus control group following rtfMRI-nf. During the Emotional Test Battery, reaction times decreased to identification of positive faces and during self-identification with positive words and vigilance scores increased to positive faces and decreased to negative faces during the faces dot-probe task in the experimental versus control group following rtfMRI-nf.

CONCLUSIONS: rtfMRI-nf training to increase the amygdalar hemodynamic response to positive memories was associated with changes in amygdalar responses to happy and sad faces and improved processing of positive stimuli during performance of the Emotional Test Battery. These results may suggest that amygdalar rtfMRI-nf training alters responses to emotional stimuli in a manner similar to antidepressant pharmacotherapy.