The neural bases of social cognition in major depressive disorder: a review

Introduction. Major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with a significant impairment of social and interpersonal functioning. Several neuroimaging studies have evaluated social cognition, i.e. how people with MDD process, store and analyze information about other people and social situations. Methods. We conducted a focused review and selected manuscript published until August 2016 indexed on PubMed and PsycINFO, searching for the following keywords: "major depressive disorder", "major depression", "unipolar depression", "clinical depression", "fMRI", "emotion comprehension", "emotion perception", "affect comprehension", "affect perception", "facial expression", "prosody", "theory of mind", "mentalizing", "empathy". Results. During depressive episodes, patients with MDD show a difference pattern of neural response during emotion processing, compared to healthy controls. Many studies show that those alterations disappear once the acute episodes remit. However, other studies show that the alterations may persist during remission periods. Limits. The studies evaluate only one component of social cognition and not all studies include a control group. Conclusions. Neurobiological research supports a role of social cognition deficits in MDD, especially for what pertains interpersonal functioning, this suggesting the need for further research and the possibility for treatment implications.