Escitalopram ameliorates differences in neural activity between healthy comparison and major depressive disorder groups on an fMRI Emotional conflict task: A CAN-BIND-1 study.

•16 MDD 8-Week remitters, 12 MDD 16-week remitters and 14 MDD non-remitters, and 30 healthy controls underwent fMRI during the performance of an emotional conflict task.•MDD participants were scanned at baseline, prior to treatment initiation and after 8 weeks treatment with the SSRI escitalopram. HC were scanned in the same intervals.•All groups demonstrated an emotional Stroop effect in reaction time, at Baseline and Week 8.•All MDD groups showed lower task related activation compared to HC at Baseline.•By Week 8, task-related activation was not significantly different between MDD groups and HC.•Findings suggest that escitalopram ameliorates differences in neural activity between HC and MDD groups, while differences in degree of mood symptom alleviation across MDD groups remain.