Characteristics Of Emotion Perception,expression,Regulation And Event Related Potential P300 While Processing Emotional Pictures In Patients With Depression

Objectives:To explore the characteristics of emotion perception,expression,regulation and P300 ERP while processing emotional pictures in patients with depression,and find out the relationship between these characteristics and depression.Methods:A total of 36 patients with depression and 31 healthy controls were enrolled.HAMD-24 and HAMA were used to evaluate depressive and anxious symptoms.Toronto Alexithymia Scale(TAS)and Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale(TEPS)were applied to assess emotion perception.Emotional Expressivity Scale(EES)was applied to assess emotion expression.Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire(CERQ)and a computer experiment were used to evaluate emotion regulation.A ERP experiment was applied to detect the characteristics of P300 ERP while processing emotional pictures.Results:The results of scales:The scores of emotion supression were higher in depressive patients than healthy controls(t=3.273,P=0.002).Also did the scores of TAS(t=7.569,P=0.000).The scores of TEPS were lower in depressive patients than healthy controls(t=3.242,P=0.002).Also did the scoresofCERQ-adaptive(t=3.669,P=0.000).Thescoresof CERQ-maladaptive were higher in depressive patients(t=5.420,P=0.000).66.67%of patients with depression were considered alexithymia,but only3.23%in control,the rates showed a significant difference(χ~2=28.661,P=0.000).The scores of TAS had significant positive correlation with the scores of HAMD-24(Pearson’s r=0.388,P=0.019)and HAMA(Pearson’s r=0.379,P=0.023).The scores of CERQ-adaptive had significant negative correlation with the scores of HAMD-24(Pearson’s r=0.357,P=0.033).The scores of CERQ-maladaptive had significant positive correlation with the scores of HAMD-24(Pearson’s r=0.360,P=0.031).The results of computer experiment:Under watch-neutral condition,the emotion experience ratings of patients with depression were higher thancontrols(t=2.080,P=0.043);whileunderwatch-negative,reappraise-negative and supress-negative conditions,the ratings of depressive patients showed no differences with the control(P﹥0.05).The scores of CERQ-adaptive were negatively corralated with the ratings of watch-negative(Pearson’s r=0.427,P=0.026)and reappraise-negative(Pearson’s r=0.533,P=0.004)in depressive patients.The results of ERP experiment:Under negative picture condition,the amplitude of ERP P300 for novel stimulus was larger in depressive patients(t=2.254,P=0.031).Under positive picture condition,the latency of ERP P300 for novel stimulus was shorter in depressive patients(t=2.073,P=0.046).In depressive patients,Under positive picture condition,the amplitude of ERP P300 for target stimulus was negatively corralated with the ratings of reappraise-negative(Pearson’s r=0.663,P=0.010),and was negatively corralated with the scores of HAMD-24(Pearson’s r=0.727,P=0.001)and HAMA(Pearson’s r=0.546,P=0.019).Conclusions:The incidence of alexithymia is higher in depressive patients than genaral population.The depressive patients have difficulty in emotion perception.It is hard for them to experience pleasure.They tend to supress their emotion,and use maladaptive emotion regulation skills rather than adaptive emotion regulation skills.But they can regulate their negative emotions effectively under direction.The baseline for emotion arousal of depressive patients maybe lower than general population,and their ERP P300 may be abnormal when processing emotional information.