Depression, Pessimistic Thinking, and Hopelesness: an fMRI Study

A pessimistic thinking style about the future is one of the most prominent symptoms of major depressive disorder and is related to hopelesness (Katayama, Nakagawa, Umeda, Teresawa, Kurata, Tabuchi, et al., 2019).

fMRI was applied in participants in order to investigate task-associated brain activity concerning future-thinking. In addition, resting-state brain activation was measured in the medial fronto-polar cortex among patients with depression and healthy control subjects.

It was found that patients with depression exhibited an enhanced activation in the medial fronto-polar cortex bilaterally compared to healthy control subjects when they were thinking about the distant future (Katayama et al., 2019). This result was correlated with the pervasiveness of future-thinking in a pessimistic manner and with depression symptom severity.

It is suggested that patients with depression may already have a forethought in emotional affect related to pessimistic instances about future happenings, and have impairments in considering the distant future.  treatmentHis finding is suggested as a neuromarker for aid in the treatment of depression with for example cognitive behavioral therapy (Katayama et al., 2019).