Face Recognition Brain Functional Connectivity in Patients With Major Depression: A Brain Source Localization Study by ERP

Objective: Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) presents with face recognition defects. These defects negatively affect their social interactions. However, the cause of these defects is not clear. This study sought to explore whether MDD patients develop facial perceptual processing disorders with characteristics of brain functional connectivity (FC).

Methods: Event-related potential (ERP) was used to explore differences between 20 MDD patients and 20 healthy participants with face and non-face recognition tasks based on 64 EEG parameters. After pre-processing of EEG data and source reconstruction using the minimum-norm estimate (MNE), data were converted to AAL90 template to obtain a time series of 90 brain regions. EEG power spectra were determined using Fieldtrip incorporating a Fast Fourier transform. FC was determined for all pairs of brain signals for theta band using debiased estimate of weighted phase-lag index (wPLI) in Fieldtrip. To explore group differences in wPLI, independent t-tests were performed with p < 0.05 to indicate statistical significance. False discovery rate (FDR) correction was used to adjust p-values.

Results: The findings showed that amplitude induction by face pictures was higher compared with that of non-face pictures both in MDD and healthy control (HC) groups. Face recognition amplitude in MDD group was lower compared with that in the HC group. Two time periods with significant differences were then selected for further analysis. Analysis showed that FC was stronger in the MDD group compared with that in the HC group in most brain regions in both periods. However, only one FC between two brain regions in HC group was stronger compared with that in the MDD group.

Conclusion: Dysfunction in brain FC among MDD patients is a relatively complex phenomenon, exhibiting stronger and multiple connectivity with several brain regions of emotions. The findings of the current study indicate that the brain FC of MDD patients is more complex and less efficient in the initial stage of face recognition.