F93. Gender Differences in Brain Activation During Implicit Emotional Processing in Patients With Melancholic Depression

Abstract

Increased susceptibility of women to MDD may relate to differences in neural processing of emotional faces between men and women. Studies of gender differences in depression that include all subtypes may be skewed due to neural differences of subtypes. It is therefore valuable to investigate gender differences in samples that are homogeneous regarding depressive subtype. Gender differences may also be linked to neural dysregulation that occurs in melancholic depression, which is characterized by blunted emotional reactivity and significant anhedonia. The aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the melancholic subtype as it relates to brain activation during implicit perception of emotional faces.