Abstract
Background Modification of attentional biases (ABM) in residual depression may lead to more adaptive emotion perception and emotion regulation reflected in changes in brain activity. There are growing efforts to characterize the neural underpinnings of ABM in depression, but task related emotion processing has so far not been investigated in a larger sample.
Methods A total of 134 previously depressed individuals with residual symptoms were allocated to 14 days of ABM or placebo in a pre-registered RCT followed by an fMRI modified emotion perception task.
Results ABM was associated with reduced amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activation compared to placebo during negative images. Response within the insular cortex was associated with the induction of positive affective bias following ABM and with improvement in symptoms.
Conclusions ABM training has an early effect on brain function within circuitry associated with emotional appraisal and the generation of affective states.