Subgenual anterior cingulate cortex activity covariation with cardiac vagal control is altered in depression

Abstract Background We tested the hypothesis that subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) participates in concurrently regulating shifts in both affective state and cardiac vagal control. Methods Eleven healthy adults and 8 depressed subjects performed the Emotional Counting Stroop task in alternating 15-second blocks of emotion words and neutral words while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrocardiography (ECG). We measured the absolute value of change between adjacent 15-second blocks in both cardiac vagal control and the BOLD signal in specific regions of interest. Results Strong positive correlations were observed in healthy control participants between changes in cardiac vagal control and changes in BOLD signal intensity in sgACC (BA25) (right: r =.67, p