The Study Of Processing Facial Attractiveness In Depression Disorder By Event-Related Potential

Purpose: Faces are a very wide range of visual stimuli in human life.We will inevitably affect the recognition and judgment of faces in interpersonal communication.Faces provide important social information to the viewer,such as age,gender,identity,expression,and vital functions in the interaction between people.Therefore,face information is also essential for people with depression.Therefore,researchers have been constantly discussing the face recognition of depression.Facial attractiveness refers to the positive and pleasant emotional experience induced by the target person's face and drives others to a certain degree of closure will.Although previous studies have examined the recognition of facial emotional information in patients with depression,the neural mechanism processing facial attractiveness in depression disorder is unclear.Therefore,this study will use the facial attractiveness judgment task combined with event-related potential technology to explore the neural mechanism of processing facial attractiveness of depression.Methods: We recruited 20 patients with depression and 20 healthy controls.There were no significant differences in gender,age,and length of education between the two groups.Depression patients who were scheduled for treatment at the depression disorder clinic in Anhui Mental Health Center were recruited.Diagnosed by more than 2 clinical psychiatrists and meets the diagnostic criteria for DSM-5.Clinical psychiatrists evaluated the emotional symptoms of patients with depression using the Hamilton Depression Scale.The inclusion criteria in the study were: Hamilton Depression Scale 17(HAMD)score > 17 points,Beck Depression Scale score > 14 points,Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale score ? 26 points.Twenty healthy control participants matched gender,age,and years of education with those in depression.Participants are required to complete the facial attractiveness judgment task in which participants must judge the attractiveness of the faces presented on the screen.We selected 80 face images as the final experimental materials,including 40 attractive faces(20 male and 20 female)and 40 unattractive faces(20 male and 20 female).Recording ERP.Results:(1)Behavioral results: Correct rates of face attractiveness in depression group and healthy control group: The t-test showed that the correct rate of high facial attractiveness was significantly lower in depression subjects than in the normal control group(t=-3.74,P<0.01).The correct rate of low facial attractiveness was significantly lower than that of the normal control group(t=-2.04,P<0.05).Reaction time of facial attractiveness in depression group and healthy control group: For high facial attractiveness,the response of the depression group was significantly higher than that of the normal control group(t=2.77,P<0.05).For low facial attractiveness,there was no statistically significant difference between the response group and the normal group(t=0.67,P<0.05).(2)EEG results: In the healthy control group,high facial attractiveness induced late positive component LPC(F=13.82,P <.001),and depression subjects did not induce late positive component LPC.At the time windows of P1,N170,and N2,the average amplitude difference induced by the high facial attractiveness and the low facial attractiveness did not reach significant under the conditions of the healthy control group and the depression group(all P> 0.1).Conclusion: This study is the first to confirm that there is a processing abnormality in the reward stimulation of facial attractiveness in patients with depression,and it is not effective to perceive and judge the attractiveness of the face.This suggests that depression can undermine an individual's attention,cognition,and memory patterns,making positive or rewarding stimuli ineffective,reducing the positive emotions or rewards experienced in attractive faces.