Depression and its relation to posterior cortical activity during performance of neuropsychological verbal and spatial tasks

This study examined the relationship between individual differences in depression and brain asymmetry during task performance in a subclinical sample. It was investigated whether depression is associated with lower right posterior activation during performance of spatial tasks. We recorded electroencephalographic (EEG) activity from 31 university students during the performance of two verbal and two spatial tasks. As expected, individual differences in depression were associated with a relative right hypoactivation during spatial task performance. The findings imply that individual differences in right posterior activation are not specific to clinical states of depression but are also evident in healthy subjects with depressive symptoms.