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Description: With respect to lifetime prevalence, major depressive disorder (MDD) catches up to oncological and cardiovascular diseases and worldwide, it is becoming a substantial cause of invalidity. However, as for the symptom profiles and etiology, depressed patients represent a considerably heterogeneous group, what contributes to the low efficacy of treatment. MDD is a highly multi-factorial diagnosis and one of the factors driving the development of MDD may be the experience of a traumatic event - primarily linked with the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In this project, we hypothesize the existence of a posttraumatic subtype of MDD, with patients reporting the presence of a trauma and exhibiting a certain level of PTSD symptoms. In search for more homogeneous subtypes of mental disorders, traditional approach to psychopathology that rests on the notion that symptoms are a manifestation of some common latent factor has been shown to be rather ineffective and largely unable to clearly imply the targets for clinical intervention. Alternative approach to the study of mental disorders is the network approach that conceptualizes symptoms as mutually interacting, often reciprocally reinforcing, elements of a complex network. By applying the network approach, the disorder does not have to be represented and analyzed in a reductionist manner, but as a complex causal system. The aims of the project are: (1) To identify the posttraumatic subtype of MDD, analyze the symptom network, and determine which exact level of PTSD symptoms is associated with a qualitative shift in the character of MDD; (2) To analyze the network structure of depression symptoms and their interrelationships in the presence of PTSD symptoms; (3) To cross-validate the existence of posttraumatic subtype of MDD and its structure in clinical population; (4) To analyze the etiopathogenesis of the posttraumatic subtype of MDD and identify symptoms that should be the primary object of clinical intervention. This project, is funded by Slovak Research and Development Agency (project number: APVV-17-0418).