An fMRI Study of Cytokine-Induced Depressed Mood and Social Pain: The Role of Sex Differences

By Naomi I. Eisenberger, Tristen K. Inagaki, Lian T. Rameson, Nehjla M. Mashal, Michael R. Irwin. NeuroImage, 2009

301 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although research has demonstrated a relationship between proinflammatory cytokine activity and depressive symptoms, the neurocognitive processes underlying this relationship have remained largely unexplored. Here, we examined the effect of proinflammatory cytokine activation on the neural correlates of socially painful experience and associated depressed mood. Participants received either low-dose endotoxin or placebo through intravenous injection. Levels of the proinflammatory cytokine, IL-6, were repeatedly assessed through hourly blood draws; self-reported depressed mood was assessed hourly as well. Two hours post-injection, participants completed a neuroimaging session in which they were socially excluded during an online ball-tossing game. Replicating previous research, individuals exposed to endotoxin, compared to placebo, showed increases in IL-6 levels and depressed mood. Although there were no meaningful differences between the endotoxin and control groups in neural responses to social exclusion, there were sex differences in the relationships between IL-6 increases and neural responses to exclusion among subjects exposed to endotoxin. Among females, but not males, exposed to endotoxin, increases in IL-6 were associated with increases in social pain-related neural activity (dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula) that mediated the relationship between IL-6 increases and depressed mood increases. Implications of these sex differences in the neural correlates of cytokine-associated depressed mood and social pain are discussed.

Subfields: Behavioral Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/65e3d0c47977a4237a27d9431e86ee0aaec82a5d

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Citations in the corpus

From Stress to Inflammation and Major Depressive Disorder: A Social Signal Transduction Theory of Depression (2014, background): “…reduced food intake, altered sleep (e.g., disrupted sleep continuity, increased REM latency, and REM suppression), and social-behavioral withdrawal (Eisenberger, Inagaki, Mashal, & Irwin, 2010; Eisenberger et al., 2009; Reichenberg et al., 2001; for a review, see DellaGioia & Hannestad, 2010).”
Why Sleep Is Important for Health: A Psychoneuroimmunology Perspective (2014, background): “Third, experimental activation of inflammation induces increases of depressive symptoms along with activation of brain sites that regulate positive and negative affect (Eisenberger et al. 2009, 2010a,b).”
Inflammation in Fear- and Anxiety-Based Disorders: PTSD, GAD, and Beyond (2017, background): “Typhoid vaccination and endotoxin administration both increase insula activity (Eisenberger et al, 2009; Harrison et al, 2009b).”
The Effect of Antidepressant Medication Treatment on Serum Levels of Inflammatory Cytokines: A Meta-Analysis (2011, unknown): “…serum levels of inflammatory cytokines, can elicit depressive symptoms in humans (Reichenberg et al, 2001; Wright et al, 2005; Capuron et al, 2009; Eisenberger et al, 2009; DellaGioia and Hannestad, 2010), and studies showing that anti-inflammatory and anti-TNFa drugs can ameliorate depressive…”
Inflammation-Associated Depression: From Serotonin to Kynurenine (2010, background): “In females, but not males, increases in IL-6 were associated with increases in activity of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and the anterior insula (Eisenberger et al 2009).”
Social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain (2011, result): “These results are also consistent with two recent studies indicating that biological vulnerabilities that predispose people to higher physical pain sensitivity are associated with activation in or around the somatosensory cortex in the Cyberball rejection task (33, 34), a task that has not previousl”