Vulnerability to Depression and Oscillatory Resting-State Networks

Depression is the most commonly observed mood disorder, which is accompanied by changes in emotional processes and the default mode network (DMN) activity. In this study, we aimed to investigate how predisposition to depression shows up in the emotional coloring of spontaneous thoughts and the activity of oscillatory resting-state networks, as revealed by source localization and independent component analysis techniques. Depressive symptoms correlated positively with the prevalence of negative emotion during EEG registration and with delta and theta activity in the orbitofrontal cortex and negatively with theta activity in the DMN. Since an increase of low-frequency oscillations in the orbitofrontal cortex is observed in aversive states, whereas their decrease in the DMN reflects an activation of this network, which is related to self-referenced processing, our results are consistent with the notion that vulnerability to depression is associated with general negative emotional disposition and excessive focus on the self