Sağlıklı ve depresif popülasyonlarda duygusal stroop aktivasyonlarının fmrı ile lokalizasyonu.

Among many tasks suggested to measure emotional conflict resolution, the Word-Face Stroop Task stands out since it specifically creates a conflict between two emotional items: Emotional words versus emotional faces. The Turkish valence-specific Word-Face Stroop Task is demonstrated to work as an effective tool to measure emotional conflict resolution and revealed different behavioral patterns between depressed and healthy groups. In this dissertation, using the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)-compatible Turkish Word-Face Stroop, it is aimed to show that the group differences in behavioral patterns will be reflected as different brain activation patterns. The behavioral results of this valence-specific Word-Face Stroop revealed that both group succeeded to show positive-negative asymmetry effect, i.e. slowing down towards negative cases; whereas patients were faster and more correct towards negative cases in contrast to healthy group. In line with these behavioral results, different patterns of brain activations are found between the groups: Compared to healthy group, patients showed higher activations in cognitive control centers of the brain, such as right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex and Superior Frontal Gyrus towards negative stimuli; and they showed higher activations in Frontal Eye Field and Middle Frontal Gyrus that are crucial for attention regulation and reorientation, towards incongruent cases. These activations, along with the behavioral findings, lead to the conclusion that patients‘ allocation of attention is mostly biased toward negativity. Thus, rather than showing a specific emotional or cognitive deficits, patients seem to have a differently molded attentional mechanism that is negatively-biased.Ph.D. - Doctoral Progra