Low emotional arousal in depression as explained by the motivated attention approach (La baja activación emocional en la depresión explicada por el enfoque de la atención motivada)

Depression has been associated with low emotional arousal. Highly arousing emotional stimuli engage the cortical circuits related to the allocation of attention towards these stimuli. Thus, it has been hypothesized that depression could be characterized by a deficit in these brain circuits. This brief review summarizes how attention and emotion are interconnected and suggests that common brain mechanisms underlie the link between emotion and attention. Finally, the results from depression research are presented that show that low emotional arousal in depression could arise from a deficit in brain circuits related to attention.