Elsevier

Biological Psychiatry

Volume 70, Issue 4, 15 August 2011, Pages 327-333
Biological Psychiatry

Archival Report
Default-Mode and Task-Positive Network Activity in Major Depressive Disorder: Implications for Adaptive and Maladaptive Rumination

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.02.003Get rights and content

Background

Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been associated reliably with ruminative responding; this kind of responding is composed of both maladaptive and adaptive components. Levels of activity in the default-mode network (DMN) relative to the task-positive network (TPN), as well as activity in structures that influence DMN and TPN functioning, may represent important neural substrates of maladaptive and adaptive rumination in MDD.

Methods

We used a unique metric to estimate DMN dominance over TPN from blood oxygenation level-dependent data collected during eyes-closed rest in 17 currently depressed and 17 never-disordered adults. We calculated correlations between this metric of DMN dominance over TPN and the depressive, brooding, and reflective subscales of the Ruminative Responses Scale, correcting for associations between these measures both with one another and with severity of depression. Finally, we estimated and compared across groups right fronto-insular cortex (RFIC) response during initiations of ascent in DMN and in TPN activity.

Results

In the MDD participants, increasing levels of DMN dominance were associated with higher levels of maladaptive, depressive rumination and lower levels of adaptive, reflective rumination. Moreover, our RFIC state-change analysis showed increased RFIC activation in the MDD participants at the onset of increases in TPN activity; conversely, healthy control participants exhibited increased RFIC response at the onset of increases in DMN activity.

Conclusions

These findings support a formulation in which the DMN undergirds representation of negative, self-referential information in depression, and the RFIC, when prompted by increased levels of DMN activity, initiates an adaptive engagement of the TPN.

Section snippets

Participants

Seventeen adults diagnosed with MDD and 17 control (CTL) participants with no history of any DSM-IV psychiatric disorder participated in this study. All depressed participants met criteria for a DSM-IV diagnosis of MDD based on their responses to the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders (24) as administered by trained diagnostic staff; none of the CTL participants met diagnostic criteria for any current or past Axis I disorder. Depressed individuals taking

Demographic and Clinical Variables

Demographic and clinical characteristics of the depressed and nondepressed participants are presented in Table 2; case-by-case demographic and clinical data for participants in the MDD group are presented in Table 3. The two groups of participants did not differ significantly in age, t(32) = .84, or gender composition, χ2(32) = .0, both p > .10. As expected, the depressed participants had higher scores on the BDI-II, HAM-D, RRS-D, RRS-B, and RRS-R than did the nondepressed participants, t(32) =

Discussion

In the present study, we examined the relative dominance of DMN over TPN and its association with adaptive and maladaptive rumination in major depression. In addition, we examined RFIC responding during initiations of ascent in the DMN and the TPN in depressed and in never-disordered participants. We found that increasing levels of DMN dominance in depression were associated with higher levels of maladaptive, depressive rumination and lower levels of adaptive, reflective rumination. Further,

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