Negative Self-Schemas are Associated with Variation in the Serotonin Transporter-Linked Polymorphic Region (5-HTTLPR)

Psycholog

Dopamine Transporter Gene (DAT1) and Depressive Symptomatology are Associated with Response in a Self-Referential Encoding Task

Psycholog

Negative Self-Referential Information Processing is Consistently Predictive of Depressive Symptoms

Psycholog

Attentional Engagement and Self-Referent Processing in Depressed Adults

Psycholog

Effect of cognitive bias modification-memory on depressive symptoms and autobiographical memory bias: Two independent studies in high-ruminating and dysphoric samples

Item does not contain fulltextMemory bias is a risk factor for depression. In two independent studies, the efficacy of one CBM-Memory session on negative memory bias and depressive symptoms was tested in vulnerable samples. We compared positive to neutral (control) CBM-Memory trainings in highly-ruminating individuals (N=101) and individuals with elevated depressive symptoms (N=100). In both studies, participants studied positive, neutral, and negative Swahili words paired with their translations. In five study-test blocks, they were then prompted to retrieve either only the positive or neutral translations. Immediately following the training and one week later, we tested cued recall of all translations and autobiographical memory bias; and also measured mood, depressive symptoms, and rumination. Retrieval practice resulted in training-congruent recall both immediately after and one week after the training. Overall, there was no differential decrease in symptoms or difference in autobiographical memory bias between the training conditions. In the dysphoric but not in the high-ruminating sample, the positive training resulted in positive autobiographical bias only in dysphoric individuals with positive pre-existing bias. We conclude that one session of positive retrieval-based CBM-Memory may not be enough to yield symptom change and affect autobiographical memory bias in vulnerable individuals.17 p

Specificity and overlap of attention and memory biases in depression

Attentional and memory biases are viewed as crucial cognitive processes underlying symptoms of depression. However, it is still unclear whether these two biases are uniquely related to depression or whether they show substantial overlap. We investigated the degree of specificity and overlap of attentional and memory biases for depressotypic stimuli in relation to depression and anxiety by means of meta-analytic commonality analysis. By including four published studies, we considered a pool of 463 healthy and subclinically depressed individuals, different experimental paradigms, and different psychological measures. Memory bias is reliably and strongly related to depression and, specifically, to symptoms of negative mood, worthlessness, feelings of failure, and pessimism. Memory bias for negative information was minimally related to anxiety. Moreover, neither attentional bias nor the overlap between attentional and memory biases were significantly related to depression. Limitations include cross-sectional nature of the study. Our study showed that, across different paradigms and psychological measures, memory bias (and not attentional bias) represents a primary mechanism in depression

Effect of Cognitive Bias Modification-Memory on Depressive Symptoms and Autobiographical Memory Bias: Two Independent Studies in High-Ruminating and Dysphoric Samples

Memory bias is a risk factor for depression. In two independent studies, the efficacy of one CBM-Memory session on negative memory bias and depressive symptoms was tested in vulnerable samples. We compared positive to neutral (control) CBM-Memory trainings in highly-ruminating individuals (N = 101) and individuals with elevated depressive symptoms (N = 100). In both studies, participants studied positive, neutral, and negative Swahili words paired with their translations. In five study–test blocks, they were then prompted to retrieve either only the positive or neutral translations. Immediately following the training and one week later, we tested cued recall of all translations and autobiographical memory bias; and also measured mood, depressive symptoms, and rumination. Retrieval practice resulted in training-congruent recall both immediately after and one week after the training. Overall, there was no differential decrease in symptoms or difference in autobiographical memory bias between the training conditions. In the dysphoric but not in the high-ruminating sample, the positive training resulted in positive autobiographical bias only in dysphoric individuals with positive pre-existing bias. We conclude that one session of positive retrieval-based CBM-Memory may not be enough to yield symptom change and affect autobiographical memory bias in vulnerable individuals

Neuroimaging the consciousness of self: Review, and conceptual-methodological framework

We review neuroimaging research investigating self-referential processing (SRP), that is, how we respond to stimuli that reference ourselves, prefaced by a lexical-thematic analysis of words indicative of “self-feelings”. We consider SRP as occurring verbally (V-SRP) and non-verbally (NV-SRP), both in the controlled, “top-down” form of introspective and interoceptive tasks, respectively, as well as in the “bottom-up” spontaneous or automatic form of “mind wandering” and “body wandering” that occurs during resting state. Our review leads us to outline a conceptual and methodological framework for future SRP research that we briefly apply toward understanding certain psychological and neurological disorders symptomatically associated with abnormal SRP. Our discussion is partly guided by William James’ original writings on the consciousness of self

Northwards

"Northwards" is an adventure story, and a story about a journey. It tells the story of Gray, a young man traveling from Florida to New York in an effort to figure out the complicated relationship with his dying father, hopping trains with his friend Solange. What he discovers along the way, as he encounters others along the railways of the East coast, is more nuanced than he expected, and allows Gray to discover something about himself as well. "Northwards" is followed by a brief afterword that discusses what is going on in the story

Online, Cued Positive Imagery Training Reduces Negatively-Biased Self-Referent Cognition in Depression

Psycholog