Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27874847›Full record

ArticleTranslational psychiatry2016

Early changes in emotional processing as a marker of clinical response to SSRI treatment in depression.

B R Godlewska, M Browning, R Norbury, P J Cowen, C J Harmer

Open access · goldAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Translational psychiatry, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
80citing papers in PubMed
15.7field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

80 citing papers in PubMed, 171 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Trial
  2. Trial
  3. Trial
  4. Trial
  5. Trial
  6. Trial
  7. Trial
  8. Trial
  9. Trial
  10. Trial
  11. Trial
  12. Trial
  13. Trial
  14. Article
  15. Review
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Early effects of a novel 5-HTThe British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science · 2026
    Article

20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

B R GodlewskaPsychopharmacology Research Unit, University Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
M BrowningPsychopharmacology and Emotion Research Laboratory, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
R NorburyDepartment of Psychology, Whitelands College, University of Roehampton, London, UK.
P J CowenPsychopharmacology Research Unit, University Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
C J HarmerPsychopharmacology and Emotion Research Laboratory, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
University of Oxford · GBUniversity of Roehampton · GB

Funding

Medical Research Council MR/K022202/1Medical Research Council MR/N008103/1
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Antidepressant treatment reduces behavioural and neural markers of negative emotional bias early in treatment and has been proposed as a mechanism of antidepressant drug action. Here, we provide a critical test of this hypothesis by assessing whether neural markers of early emotional processing changes predict later clinical response in depression. Thirty-five unmedicated patients with major depression took the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI), escitalopram (10 mg), over 6 weeks, and were classified as responders (22 patients) versus non-responders (13 patients), based on at least a 50% reduction in symptoms by the end of treatment. The neural response to fearful and happy emotional facial expressions was assessed before and after 7 days of treatment using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Changes in the neural response to these facial cues after 7 days of escitalopram were compared in patients as a function of later clinical response. A sample of healthy controls was also assessed. At baseline, depressed patients showed greater activation to fear versus happy faces than controls in the insula and dorsal anterior cingulate. Depressed patients who went on to respond to the SSRI had a greater reduction in neural activity to fearful versus happy facial expressions after just 7 days of escitalopram across a network of regions including the anterior cingulate, insula, amygdala and thalamus. Mediation analysis confirmed that the direct effect of neural change on symptom response was not mediated by initial changes in depressive symptoms. These results support the hypothesis that early changes in emotional processing with antidepressant treatment are the basis of later clinical improvement. As such, early correction of negative bias may be a key mechanism of antidepressant drug action and a potentially useful predictor of therapeutic response.

Indexed as

AdultAmygdalaBrainCitalopramEmotionsFacial RecognitionFemaleHumansMagnetic Resonance ImagingMajor Depressive DisorderMaleMiddle AgedNerve NetReference ValuesSelective Serotonin Reuptake InhibitorsTreatment OutcomeCitalopramSelective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

Identifiers

PMID27874847
PMCPMC5314109
OpenAlexW2553993334

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.