ArticlePsychological medicine2026
A stage-specific cascade of neural dysfunction emotional conflict processing in major depressive disorder.
Article in Psychological medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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.
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.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundPersistent affective disturbance is a core, disabling feature of major depressive disorder (MDD), thought to stem from a dysfunctional interaction between emotional bias and cognitive control. However, the underlying neural dynamics are debated, with studies reporting both hyper- and hypoactivation. This study utilized high-temporal-resolution electroencephalogram (EEG) to resolve this discrepancy by examining distinct stages of emotional information processing.
methodsWe recruited 175 medication-free patients with MDD (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale-17 ≥ 14) and 101 healthy controls (HCs) who completed an emotional Stroop task while an EEG was recorded. We analyzed event-related potentials reflecting conflict monitoring (N250), inhibition (N450), and resolution (LSP) using a 2 (group) × 2 (valence) × 2 (congruency) analysis of variance.
resultsResults revealed a stage-specific neural cascade. Compared to HCs, the MDD group showed: (1) hypoactivation during initial conflict monitoring (attenuated N250 amplitude); (2) compensatory hyperactivation during conflict inhibition (a significant N450 interaction revealed generalized conflict activity in MDD, unlike the context-specific response in HCs); and (3) subsequent hypoactivation during conflict resolution (reduced LSP amplitude for negative stimuli). Crucially, altered N450 correlated with depression severity, and the entire neural cascade predicted behavioral performance.
conclusionsThe apparent contradiction in the literature reflects a multistage process. MDD is characterized by an inefficient neural cascade: an initial deficit in conflict monitoring is followed by compensatory overactivation during inhibition, which ultimately proves insufficient, leading to impaired late-stage resolution. This temporally specific model advances our understanding of the pathophysiology of depression and identifies potential stage-specific targets for intervention.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.