Genetic biomarkers of social decision-making in depression

People with depression sometimes make different decisions to healthy people when there is someone else around or when the decision will affect another person. This ‘social decision-making’ behaviour might be controlled by differences in brain activity, which could in turn be affected by people’s genes. We scan the brains of volunteers with and without depression while they play games involving decisions that affect themselves and a partner. We will look at whether differences in brain activity in depressed people relate to differences in genetics. The study will help us understand more about the biology affecting social decision-making in depression.