Selbst und körper in der depression

Modern neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have become a popular instrument in the field of neuroscientific research to investigate neuronal activity in healthy and psychiatric subjects while performing specific mental tasks. In addition to task-related responses, it has also been shown in recent years that the neuronal activity during rest (i. e., an awake and relaxed state in the absence of an active task) shows significant differences between healthy and depressed subjects. In the case of depressed patients, the increased resting-state activity that has been observed would seem to affect the neuronal processing of other stimuli. This relates to the processing of exteroceptive stimuli (e. g. emotional or self-related pictures) as well as interoceptive (body-related) stimuli, both of which will be described in the following article.