Attention, depression and brain structure

People with depression tend to pay more attention to negative things - something that can lead to a vicious circle that can make their condition worse. Researchers at the University of Hong Kong investigated this negative bias in women with and without depression and used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans to look at the differences in brain structure associated with it. Their study of 17 women with and 17 women without depression found that the depressed women paid more attention to negative words and that this bias in their attention was linked to reduced grey-matter concentrations in their right superior frontal gyrus, their right anterior cingulate gyrus and their right fusiform gyrus.

Leung, K.-K. ... [et al] - Neural correlates of attention biases of people with major depressive disorder: a voxel-based morphometric study Psychological Medicine July 2009, 39(7), 1097-1106