Altered Fronto-Cingulate Connectivity During Social Competition and Cooperation in Adolescents With Major Depressive Disorder: An fNIRS Hyperscanning Study.

BACKGROUND

Major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescence is characterized by high prevalence (24.3% in China) and social dysfunction, particularly in competitive and cooperative behaviors. This study used fNIRS hyperscanning to explore cortical connectivity alterations during parent-adolescent interactions in adolescent MDD.

METHODS

Thirty-three MDD adolescents (DD) and 29 healthy controls (HCs) completed competitive/cooperative maze tasks with parents under 52-channel fNIRS. Wavelet coherence analyzed functional connectivity (FC) in prefrontal/motor regions, which provides undirected connectivity estimates. Group × task effects were tested via GLMM and FDR correction.

RESULTS

(1) Competition: DD exhibited hyperconnectivity in emotion regulation circuits between right opercular inferior frontal gyrus and left triangular inferior frontal gyrus (rIFGoperc and lIFGtriang, p = 0.047) but hypoconnectivity in executive networks between left dorsal superior frontal gyrus and left precentral gyrus (lSFGdor and lPreCG, p = 0.040). (2) Cooperation: DD showed enhanced motor-cognitive integration between right supplementary motor area and right middle frontal gyrus (rSMA and rMFG, p = 0.036) but impaired socioemotional processing between right triangular inferior frontal gyrus and left dorsal superior frontal gyrus (rIFGtriang and lSFGdor, p = 0.033). Task modulation: Within DD, cooperation preferentially engaged emotional resonance networks between right inferior orbital frontal gyrus and right medial superior frontal gyrus (rORBinf and rSFGmed, p = 0.031) while competition was associated with enhanced coupling in self-monitoring circuits between left dorsal superior frontal gyrus and right opercular inferior frontal gyrus (lSFGdor and rIFGoperc, p = 0.047).

CONCLUSIONS

Adolescent MDD involves context-dependent neural deficits in social cognition, suggesting targets for neuromodulatory interventions.