Dynamic connectivity laterality of the amygdala under negative stimulus in depression: A MEG study

•The dynamic ACC–AMYG functional connectivity was explored in time–frequency domain under sad stimuli.•Patients with depression exhibited a lack of inhibition of ACC on AMYG in the early period.•Left laterality of AMYG–ACC functional connectivity abnormality existed in depression in the late period.

Depression is a mental disorder characterized by emotional and cognitive dysfunction, which is related to the abnormal activity in brain regions involving emotion processing such as amygdala (AMYG). The laterality of AMYG during emotional information processing has always been a controversial issue in any depression study, however, the dynamic characteristic of laterality in the AMYG has been ignored. In this paper, we proposed to explore the time-varying functional coupling between the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the bilateral AMYG in the time–frequency domain. As a result, an emotional facial expression paradigm was undertaken in this study. Using magnetoencephalogram (MEG) data acquired from 16 patients with major depression disorder and 16 matched healthy controls, we calculated the wavelet coherence. The research led to the conclusion that, after sad facial stimuli, the ACC–bilateral AMYG connectivity in depressive patients showed a significant decrease in the beta band during the first 100 ms. In addition, the ACC–left AMYG connectivity led to a significant increase in the gamma band around 400 ms and in beta band around 700 ms. Our work suggests a lack of sufficient inhibition of the ACC on the bilateral AMYG in the early period and the lateralized dysregulation of the ACC on the left AMYG in late period during the sad facial information processing task. We hypothesized that the clinical manifestations of depression may partly result from it.