Emotional Processing: A Key to Depression Treatment?

In my last post I reported on the use of machine learning to aid in predicting response to depression treatment.

Another interesting depression prediction tool is being investigated in a trial in England funded by the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.

This trial uses a visual facial recognition tool. The hypothesis is that early antidepressant action can be identified by changes in facial emotional recognition.

This trial stems from work by Catherine Harmer Ph.D. from the University of Oxford. Her work in this area is highlighted in the free full-text manuscript citation at the end of this post.

In this full-text manuscript the authors review research suggesting antidepressants drug action may be due to the direct effect on emotional processing. 

Clinicians know that clinical recognition of an antidepressant response may take six weeks for a single antidepressant drug. It may be even longer if dosage escalation is needed to test a specific drug.

Facial emotional recognition is a potential earlier marker of antidepressant response. In the review cited below, facial recognition changes as early as two weeks have predicted a positive drug response.

Antidepressant drugs appear to alter emotional processing in healthy non-depressed adults. This may allow for wider screening of new investigational antidepressant drugs.

You can read more about the NHS trial at MedicalXpress HERE.

Click on the PMID link in the citation below for a link to the free full-text review.

Image of limbic system known to be involved in emotional processing is my screen shot from the iPad app 3D Brain.

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Image of brain is my screen shot from the iPad app 3D Brain.

Pringle A, & Harmer CJ (2015). The effects of drugs on human models of emotional processing: an account of antidepressant drug treatment. Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, 17 (4), 477-87 PMID: 26869848