ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to provide a review of current knowledge regarding the development of social cognitive neuroscience as a discipline and its relevance to the study of depression. The work discussed focuses on the idea that unipolar depression is now seen as a disorder not only of emotion regulation, but also of alterations in the neuropsychological, and hence social cognition, of affected individuals. In this sense, a relationship exists not only as a result of commonalities between the neurobiology of the emotional and social brain, but also as a result of the relationship between deficits in social cognition (executive functions such as decision making, and more obviously disruptions in emotion) and the presence and persistence of unipolar depression.
