Academic Journal
Effects of depression status and genetic risk on emotional word processing in a large cohort.
| Title: | Effects of depression status and genetic risk on emotional word processing in a large cohort. |
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| Authors: | Herrera-Rivero M; Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Münster, Münster, Germany; Joint Institute for Individualisation in a Changing Environment (JICE), University of Münster and Bielefeld University, Münster, Germany. Electronic address: marisol.herrera@uni-muenster.de., Teismann H; Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Münster, Münster, Germany., Berger K; Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Münster, Münster, Germany. |
| Source: | Journal of affective disorders [J Affect Disord] 2026 Dec 15; Vol. 415, pp. 122507. Date of Electronic Publication: 2026 Sep 15. |
| Publication Type: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Journal Info: | Publisher: Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press Country of Publication: Netherlands NLM ID: 7906073 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1573-2517 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 01650327 NLM ISO Abbreviation: J Affect Disord Subsets: MEDLINE |
| Imprint Name(s): | Original Publication: Amsterdam, Elsevier/North-Holland Biomedical Press. |
| MeSH Terms: | Emotions*/physiology , Major Depressive Disorder*/genetics , Major Depressive Disorder*/psychology , Depression*/genetics , Depression*/psychology, Humans ; Female ; Male ; Genetic Risk Score ; Adult ; Cohort Studies ; Genetic Predisposition to Disease ; Middle Aged ; Genome-Wide Association Study ; Arousal |
| Abstract: | Depression has been linked to a negative bias in emotional perception, with patients frequently showing more negative valence and higher arousal ratings of emotional stimuli, such as words and images. Nevertheless, studies in large depression cohorts which also incorporate longitudinal and genetic data are lacking. We investigated the effects of depression on valence and arousal ratings of emotional words at two time points in 1392 participants of the BiDirect Study, a German cohort enriched in patients that were hospitalized due to an acute depressive episode at the time of recruitment. Data from the baseline (y0) and 2nd-wave assessments (three-year interval, y3) were used to test for associations of valence and arousal ratings of words with depression status, depressive symptoms and polygenic risk score for major depressive disorder (MDD-PRS). We found negative and positive effects of CES-D score-defined depression status and symptoms on valence and arousal ratings, respectively, at both time points. Changes in depressive symptoms and remission status at y3 related to valence ratings. MDD-PRS showed a negative effect on valence ratings (beta = -0.64, p = 0.0004). We further explored the latter finding by testing associations of valence ratings with genetic variants previously linked to depression in genome-wide association studies. This exploratory analysis suggested potential candidate genes (e.g., AREL1, LINGO1, LTBP2, PROX2, YLPM1), as well as links to neuroticism and anxiety. In conclusion, using a large cohort, our study confirmed that depression relates to more negative emotional valence and suggested that genetic risk of depression may confer certain susceptibility to cognitive bias. (Copyright © 2026 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.) |
| Competing Interests: | Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Klaus Berger reports financial support was provided by German Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF). If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. |
| Contributed Indexing: | Keywords: Cognition; Depression; Emotions; Genetics; Risk |
| Entry Date(s): | Date Created: 20260915 Date Completed: 20260925 Latest Revision: 20260925 |
| Update Code: | 20260926 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jad.2026.122507 |
| PMID: | 42744145 |
| Database: | MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1573-2517 |
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| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jad.2026.122507 |