ArticleJournal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN2021
Reduced visual contrast suppression during major depressive episodes.
Article in Journal of psychiatry & neuroscience : JPN, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic narrative review of the form, process, and function of sensory hyposensitivity in depression.Translational psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Colour preferences among individuals with common mental health disorders: a scoping review.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- Atypical Use of Visuospatial Context in Psychotic Psychopathology: A Meta-analysis.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Enhanced visual contrast suppression during peak psilocybin effects: Psychophysical results from a pilot randomized controlled trial.Journal of vision · 2024Trial
- High-dose Vitamin B6 supplementation reduces anxiety and strengthens visual surround suppression.Human psychopharmacology · 2022Trial
- Seeing Through Feeling: Dynamic Interplay Between Emotion and Visual Perception.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Article
- Self images: an empirical enquiry into Rembrandt's self-portraits.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Visuomotor dysconnectivity as a candidate mechanism of psychomotor agitation in major depression.Psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Reduced neural suppression at occipital cortex in subthreshold depression.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Basic stimulus processing alterations from top-down cognitive control in depression drive independent temporal components of multi-echo naturalistic fMRI data.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- The Deteriorated Center-Surround Suppression in Patients With First-Episode and Drug-Naïve Major Depressive Disorder.Depression and anxiety · 2025Article
- Higher amplitudes of visual networks are associated with trait- but not state-depression.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Is greenspace in the eye of the beholder? Exploring perceived and objective greenspace exposure effects on mental health.Journal of environmental psychology · 2024Article
- Alterations in center-surround contrast suppression in patients with major depressive disorder.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Subclinical structural atypicality of retinal thickness and its association with gray matter volume in the visual cortex of maltreated children.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Impaired visual-motor functional connectivity in first-episode medication-naïve patients with major depressive disorder.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Weakened untuned gain control is associated with schizophrenia while atypical orientation-tuned suppression depends on visual acuity.Journal of vision · 2023Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Previous studies have suggested that processing of visual contrast information could be altered in major depressive disorder. To clarify the changes at different levels of the visual hierarchy, we behaviourally measured contrast perception in 2 centre-surround conditions, assessing retinal and cortical processing. Methods: As part of a prospective cohort study, our sample consisted of controls (n = 29; 21 female) and patients with unipolar depression, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder who had baseline major depressive episodes (n = 111; 74 female). In a brightness induction test that assessed retinal processing, participants compared the perceived luminance of uniform patches (presented on a computer screen) as the luminance of the backgrounds was varied. In a contrast suppression test that assessed cortical processing, participants compared the perceived contrast of gratings, which were presented with collinearly or orthogonally oriented backgrounds. Results: Brightness induction was similar for patients with major depressive episodes and controls (p = 0.60, d = 0.115, Bayes factor = 3.9), but contrast suppression was significantly lower for patients than for controls (p < 0.006, d = 0.663, Bayes factor = 35.2). We observed no statistically significant associations between contrast suppression and age, sex, or medication or diagnostic subgroup. At follow-up (n = 74), we observed some normalization of contrast perception. Limitations: We assessed contrast perception using behavioural tests instead of electrophysiology. Conclusion: The reduced contrast suppression we observed may have been caused by decreased retinal feedforward or cortical feedback signals. Because we observed intact brightness induction, our results suggest normal retinal but altered cortical processing of visual contrast during a major depressive episode. This alteration is likely to be present in multiple types of depression and to partially normalize upon remission.
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Registered trials
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.