Electrophysiological evidence of the time course of Attentional Bias in Nonpatients Reporting Symptoms of Depression With and Without Co-Occurring Anxiety

Anxiety is characterized by attentional biases to threat, but findings are inconsistent for depression. To address this inconsistency, the present study systematically assessed the role of co-occurring anxiety in attentional bias in depression. In addition, the role of emotional valence, arousal, and gender was explored. Ninety-two non-patients completed the Penn State Worry Questionnaire (Meyer et al., 1990; Molina and Borkovec, 1994) and portions of the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (Watson et al., 1995a,b). Individuals reporting high levels of depression and low levels of anxiety (depression only), high levels of depression and anxiety (combined), or low levels of both (control) completed an emotion-word Stroop task during event-related brain potential recording. Pleasant and unpleasant words were matched on emotional arousal level. An attentional bias was not evident in the depression-only group. Women in the combined group had larger N200 amplitude for pleasant than unpleasant stimuli, and the combined group as a whole had larger right-lateralized P300 amplitude for pleasant than unpleasant stimuli, consistent with an early and later attentional bias that is specific to unpleasant valence in the combined group. Men in the control group had larger N200 amplitude for pleasant than unpleasant stimuli, consistent with an early attentional bias that is specific to pleasant valence. The present study indicates that the nature and time course of attention prompted by emotional valence and not arousal differentiates depression with and without anxiety, with some evidence of gender moderating early effects. Overall, results suggest that co-occurring anxiety is more important than previously acknowledged in demonstrating evidence of attentional biases in depression

Neural Correlates of Suspiciousness and Interactions with Anxiety During Emotional and Neutral Word Processing

Suspiciousness is usually classified as a symptom of psychosis, but it also occurs in depression and anxiety disorders. Though how suspiciousness overlaps with depression is not obvious, suspiciousness does seem to overlap with anxious apprehension and anxious arousal (e.g., verbal iterative processes and vigilance about environmental threat). However, suspiciousness also has unique characteristics (e.g., concern about harm from others and vigilance about social threat). Given that both anxiety and suspiciousness have been associated with abnormalities in emotion processing, it is unclear whether it is the unique characteristics of suspiciousness or the overlap with anxiety that drive abnormalities in emotion processing. Event-related brain potentials were obtained during an emotion-word Stroop task. Results indicated that suspiciousness interacts with anxious apprehension to modulate initial stimulus perception processes. Suspiciousness is associated with attention to all stimuli regardless of emotion content. In contrast, anxious arousal is associated with a later response to emotion stimuli only. These results suggest that suspiciousness and anxious apprehension share overlapping processes, but suspiciousness alone is associated with a hyperactive early vigilance response. Depression did not interact with suspiciousness to predict response to emotion stimuli. These findings suggest that it may be informative to assess suspiciousness in conjunction with anxiety in order to better understand how these symptoms interact and contribute to dysfunctional emotion processing

Neural correlates of suspiciousness and interactions with anxiety during emotional and neutral word processing

Suspiciousness is usually classified as a symptom of psychosis, but it also occurs in depression and anxiety disorders. Though how suspiciousness overlaps with depression is not obvious, suspiciousness does seem to overlap with anxious apprehension and anxious arousal (e.g., verbal iterative processes and vigilance about environmental threat). However, suspiciousness also has unique characteristics (e.g., concern about harm from others and vigilance about social threat). Given that both anxiety and suspiciousness have been associated with abnormalities in emotion processing, it is unclear whether it is the unique characteristics of suspiciousness or the overlap with anxiety that drive abnormalities in emotion processing. Event-related brain potentials were obtained during an emotion-word Stroop task. Results indicated that suspiciousness interacts with anxious apprehension to modulate initial stimulus perception processes. Suspiciousness is associated with attention to all stimuli regardless of emotion content. In contrast, anxious arousal is associated with a later response to emotion stimuli only. These results suggest that suspiciousness and anxious apprehension share overlapping processes, but suspiciousness alone is associated with a hyperactive early vigilance response. Depression did not interact with suspiciousness to predict response to emotion stimuli. These findings suggest that it may be informative to assess suspiciousness in conjunction with anxiety in order to better understand how these symptoms interact and contribute to dysfunctional emotion processing

Neural correlates of suspiciousness and interactions with anxiety during emotional and neutral word processing

Suspiciousness is usually classified as a symptom of psychosis, but it also occurs in depression and anxiety disorders. Though how suspiciousness overlaps with depression is not obvious, suspiciousness does seem to overlap with anxious apprehension and anxious arousal (e.g., verbal iterative processes and vigilance about environmental threat). However, suspiciousness also has unique characteristics (e.g., concern about harm from others and vigilance about social threat). Given that both anxiety and suspiciousness have been associated with abnormalities in emotion processing, it is unclear whether it is the unique characteristics of suspiciousness or the overlap with anxiety that drive abnormalities in emotion processing. Event-related brain potentials were obtained during an emotion-word Stroop task. Results indicated that suspiciousness interacts with anxious apprehension to modulate initial stimulus perception processes. Suspiciousness is associated with attention to all stimuli regardless of emotion content. In contrast, anxious arousal is associated with a later response to emotion stimuli only. These results suggest that suspiciousness and anxious apprehension share overlapping processes, but suspiciousness alone is associated with a hyperactive early vigilance response. Depression did not interact with suspiciousness to predict response to emotion stimuli. These findings suggest that it may be informative to assess suspiciousness in conjunction with anxiety in order to better understand how these symptoms interact and contribute to dysfunctional emotion processing

Neural Correlates of Suspiciousness in Anxiety and Depression During Emotional Processing

201 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.Suspiciousness is an overlooked symptom in the study of mood and anxiety disorders, even though it is present in both clinical and subclinical populations with these symptoms. Moreover, it is possible that it may moderate or mediate relationships between mood and anxiety symptoms and regional brain activity. For this study, participants with high scores on anxious apprehension, anxious arousal and anhedonic depression were recruited. Three hypotheses were investigated: (1) Suspiciousness will have a relationship to processing deficits beyond that of anxiety and depression; (2) Specific combinations of suspiciousness and anxiety symptoms will be associated with lateralized patterns of ERP responses (i.e., strategies) to negative information; and (3) Suspiciousness will be associated with a pattern of lateralization similar to anxiety, rather than one similar to depression. In addition, left-hemisphere activity associated with suspiciousness may be associated with emotion regulatory processes and/or positive affect. During the lab session, measures of suspiciousness, affect and emotion regulation were administered and participants performed an emotional Stroop task while EEG was recorded. Analyses addressed the three hypotheses and the following relationships were observed. (1) Suspiciousness was uniquely associated with enhanced activity over the right temporal region, which may be related to an overactive right-hemisphere threat-response system. In addition, it appeared that suspiciousness was more related to anxious apprehension than to anxious arousal, but shared aspects of both. (2) These two anxiety dimensions and suspiciousness were also associated with an avoidance strategy characterized by specific patterns of ERPs. This strategy was associated with questionnaire measures of emotion regulation, providing evidence that this avoidance process generalizes to external situations. (3) Lastly, suspiciousness and depression were associated with opposite patterns of frontotemporal activity, suggesting that any similarities between suspiciousness and depression are due to an indirect or more complex relationship than that of suspiciousness and anxiety. In combination, these findings suggest that suspiciousness resembles a combination of anxious apprehension and anxious arousal and is specifically associated with increased activity of the vigilance network over right temporal regions.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Optimizing the clinical utility of four proposed criteria for a persistent and impairing grief disorder by emphasizing core, rather than associated symptoms

BACKGROUND: Distinguishing a disorder of persistent and impairing grief from normative grief allows clinicians to identify this often undetected and disabling condition. As four diagnostic criteria sets for a grief disorder have been proposed, their similarities and differences need to be elucidated. METHODS: Participants were family members bereaved by US military service death (N = 1732). We conducted analyses to assess the accuracy of each criteria set in identifying threshold cases (participants who endorsed baseline Inventory of Complicated Grief ⩾30 and Work and Social Adjustment Scale ⩾20) and excluding those below this threshold. We also calculated agreement among criteria sets by varying numbers of required associated symptoms. RESULTS: All four criteria sets accurately excluded participants below our identified clinical threshold (i.e. correctly excluding 86-96% of those subthreshold), but they varied in identification of threshold cases (i.e. correctly identifying 47-82%). When the number of associated symptoms was held constant, criteria sets performed similarly. Accurate case identification was optimized when one or two associated symptoms were required. When employing optimized symptom numbers, pairwise agreements among criteria became correspondingly 'very good' (κ = 0.86-0.96). CONCLUSIONS: The four proposed criteria sets describe a similar condition of persistent and impairing grief, but differ primarily in criteria restrictiveness. Diagnostic guidance for prolonged grief disorder in International Classification of Diseases, 11th Edition (ICD-11) functions well, whereas the criteria put forth in Section III of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) are unnecessarily restrictive