Gait patterns and mood in everyday life: A comparison between depressed patients and non-depressed controls

Background Previous laboratory findings suggest deviant gait characteristics in depressed individuals (i.e., reduced walk- ing speed and vertical up-and-down movements, larger lateral swaying movements, slumped posture). However, since most studies to date assessed gait in the laboratory, it is largely an open question whether this association also holds in more naturalistic, everyday life settings. Thus, within the current study we (1) aimed at replicating these results in an everyday life and (2) investigated whether gait characteristics could predict change in current mood. Methods Werecruitedasampleofpatients(n=35)sufferingfrommajordepressivedisorderandasampleofageandgender matched non-depressed controls (n = 36). During a 2-day assessment we continuously recorded gait patterns, general move- ment intensity and repetitively assessed the participant’s current mood. Results We replicated previous laboratory results and found that patients as compared to non-depressed controls showed reduced walking speed and reduced vertical up-and-down movements, as well as a slumped posture during everyday life episodes of walking. Moreover, independent of clinical diagnoses, higher walking speed, and more vertical up-and-down movements significantly predicted more subsequent positive mood, while changes in mood did not predict subsequent changes in gait patterns. Conclusion In sum, our results support expectations that embodiment (i.e., the relationship between bodily expression of emotion and emotion processing itself) in depression is also observable in naturalistic settings, and that depression is bodily manifested in the way people walk. The data further suggest that motor displays affect mood in everyday life

Data from the paper: Valence and Arosual: A comparison of two sets of Emotional Facial Expressions

Supplementary material to our publication: Adolph, D. & Alpers, G.W. (2010). Valence and Arosual: A comparison of two sets of Emotional Facial Expressions. Amer J Psychol, 123: 209-219. Supplementary material in MADATA contains: Table 1: Valence and Arousal Ratings in response to Nim-Stim pics (Tottenham, N., Tanaka, J. W., Leon, A. C., McCarry, T., Nurse, M., Hare, T. A., Marcus, D. J., Westerlund, A., Casey, B. J., & Nelson, C. (2009). The NimStim set of facial expressions: Judgments from untrained research participants. Psychiatry Research, 168, 242-249.); Means (+ SD) of Valence and Arousal Ratings. Table 2: Valence and Arousal Ratings in response to KDEF pics (Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Öhman, A. (1998). Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces. Stockholm, Sweden: Department of Neurosciences, Karolinska Hospital); Means (+ SD) of Valence and Arousal Rating

DIGESTER GAS - FUEL CELL - PROJECT

GEW has been operating the first fuel cell in Europe producing heat and electricity from digester gas in an environmentally friendly way. The first 9,000 hours in operation were successfully concluded in August 2001. The fuel cell powered by digester gas was one of the 25 registered ''Worldwide projects'' which NRW presented at the EXPO 2000. In addition to this, it is a key project of the NRW State Initiative on Future Energies. All of the activities planned for the first year of operation were successfully completed: installing and putting the plant into operation, the transition to permanent operation as well as extended monitoring till May 2001

Self-reported emotion regulation difficulties are associated with mood but not with the biological stress response to thin ideal exposure

BACKGROUND:Difficulties in emotion regulation have been related to psychological and physiological stress responses such as lower mood and lower parasympathetic activation (HF-HRV) under resting condition, but evidence on the potential link to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning and to physiological stress responses during a stress task is still scarce. The aim of the study was to investigate stress responses in young women when confronted to a daily stressor such as exposure to thin ideals and to understand the role of correlates of self-reported trait-like emotion regulation difficulties (ERD). METHODS:Heart rate variability (HRV) and salivary cortisol data were collected in a sample of 273 young women aged 18-35 with and without mental disorders during a vivid imagination of thin ideals (experimental condition) or landscapes (control condition). Changes in mood states were measured on a visual analogue scale (0-100). Correlates of trait-like ERD were self-reported using the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). RESULTS:Participants with higher ERD showed a stronger decline in self-reported mood after vivid imagination of thin ideals compared to participants with lower ERD in the experimental condition but also a stronger increase of positive mood with increasing ERD in the control condition. ERD were not related to baseline HF-HRV or baseline salivary cortisol levels nor to any physiological response during and after the imagination of thin ideals. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION:The results corroborate the role of ERD regarding the immediate psychological impact of daily stressors. Exposition to daily stressors in the laboratory results in discrepant psychological and physiological reactivity. Future studies should investigate under what conditions the complex interrelations between immediate and long-term ERD and biological activation are amenable to assessment in a laboratory setting. The additive effects of multiple exposition to stressors, such as thin ideals in daily life, also need to be addressed

Differential effects of trait-like emotion regulation use and situational emotion regulation ability across the affective and anxiety disorders spectrum: a transdiagnostic examination

Abstract Here, we investigated the association of different emotion regulation (ER) indices with symptom severity across a large transdiagnostic sample of patients with emotional disorders (cross-sectional approach) and the predictive validity these ER indices have for the outcome of routine care CBT (longitudinal approach). We assessed the trait-like use of adaptive (reappraisal) and maladaptive (suppression, externalizing behaviors) ER strategies via questionnaire as well as the situational ability to regulate emotions with an experimental ER paradigm. Psychopathology was assessed dimensionally using the depression, anxiety, and stress scale. Cross-sectionally symptom severity was predicted by less trait-like use of adaptive and more trait-like use of maladaptive ER strategies, but no associations were found for situational ER ability. This association was more pronounced for depression and stress symptoms rather than anxiety symptoms. In a striking dissociation, the longitudinal analyses revealed the reverse picture: Better situational ER ability, but not trait-like use of ER strategies was associated with less symptom severity after the CBT treatment. Our data argues in favor of a distinction between trait-like and situational ER abilities in individuals with emotional disorders, highlighting challenges in applying adaptive ER strategies in daily life despite demonstrating intact ER skills in experimental settings. Our findings also inform transdiagnostic models of psychopathology and suggest that distress/depression rather than anxiety symptomatology to be driving forces for the occurrence of ER deficits across the depression/anxiety disorders spectrum