Risk of depression enhances auditory Pitch discrimination in the brain as indexed by the mismatch negativity

- Mismatch negativity amplitudes (MMNs) to slide and pitch deviants are enhanced in individuals with risk of depression.
- MMN to pitch is larger for deviants in a musical major mode context than minor one.
- The relation between MMNs to pitch deviants and depression level is influenced by musicianship.

ObjectiveDepression is a state of aversion to activity and low mood that affects behaviour, thoughts, feelings and sense of well-being. Moreover, the individual depression trait is associated with altered auditory cortex activation and appraisal of the affective content of sounds.MethodsMismatch negativity responses (MMNs) to acoustic feature changes (pitch, timbre, location, intensity, slide and rhythm) inserted in a musical sequence played in major or minor mode were recorded using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 88 subclinical participants with depression risk.ResultsWe found correlations between MMNs to slide and pitch and the level of depression risk reported by participants, indicating that higher MMNs correspond to higher risk of depression. Furthermore we found significantly higher MMN amplitudes to mistuned pitches within a major context compared to MMNs to pitch changes in a minor context.ConclusionsThe brains of individuals with depression risk are more responsive to mistuned and fast pitch stimulus changes, even at a pre-attentive level.SignificanceConsidering the altered appraisal of affective contents of sounds in depression and the relevance of spectral pitch features for those contents in music and speech, we propose that individuals with subclinical depression risk are more tuned to tracking sudden pitch changes.