Anhedonia symptoms: The assessment of brain functional mechanism following music stimuli using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to investigate the effect of music stimulation on the brain functional mechanism of depressed patients with anhedonia symptoms using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). METHODS: Participants in this study included 20 healthy subjects as the control group, 25 subjects with depression and no anhedonia as the intervention group A, and 24 subjects with depression and anhedonia as the intervention group B. The safely emotional stimulation was done by Iranian music. To investigate the effect of music therapy on the brain, a task including 50 tracks of 12 s Iranian music (traditional and pop) was used. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPM Toolbox in MATLAB software. RESULTS: The results showed that brain patterns in depressed patients with and without anhedonia could be distinguished based on positive and negative musical stimuli (p < 0.05). Important fMRI biomarker such as effective connectivity strength related to the fronto-limbic network, including the supragenual ACC, subgenual ACC, AMYG, and FFG were evaluated in depressed patients with anhedonia. CONCLUSION: This was the first study to investigate the neural circuits involved in music-related emotional processing in patients with anhedonia symptoms. These findings could help advance neurological understandings of anhedonia and suggest new treatments.