Attention and executive functioning deficits associated with dimensions of anxiety and depression

Both anxiety and depression have been linked with attention and executive deficits, yet the nature of these deficits and their clinical implications remain unclear. Chapter 1 reviews existing theories and findings from these literatures, along with key limitations of the existing research. Chapter 2 examines relations between worry, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and working memory capacity (WMC). Results revealed that reduced WMC was associated with symptoms of GAD and elevated levels of worry, both cross-sectionally and prospectively. In contrast, WMC was not associated with depression. These findings suggest that reduced WMC may play a role in the etiology of excessive worry. Chapter 3 examines executive deficits associated with current and past symptoms of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Results revealed that current (MDD) symptoms were associated with deficits in inhibition – nevertheless, these deficits were not unique to depression, but were also associated with measures of state mood and current GAD symptoms, suggesting that they may simply be a by-product of general distress. In contrast, set-shifting deficits were uniquely associated with past MDD symptoms, suggesting that these deficits may reflect an ongoing vulnerability to depression. Chapter 4 examines individual differences in inattentional blindness (IB). Across two independent samples, results revealed that attention and executive abilities (e.g., multiple object tracking skills, WMC) did not predict whether participants noticed the unexpected stimulus, but levels of anxiety and depression did. Specifically, results revealed a significant three-way interaction between worry, anxious arousal, and anhedonic depression predicting IB. Chapter 5 discusses a number of important directions for future research on attention and executive deficits associated with dimensions of anxiety and depression

Mindfulness Training and Attentional Control in Older Adults: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Mindfulness-based interventions have been found to improve facets of attentional control. However, comparison with active control groups has been scarce, and few studies have examined mindfulness as a means to ameliorate age-related cognitive deficits. This rigorously-designed, placebo-controlled randomized controlled trial, investigated the effects of mindfulness-based attention training (MBAT) on attentional control in older adults relative to an active control group. Seventy-four community-dwelling older adults were randomized to four weeks of MBAT or an active lifestyle eduction control group. Pre- and post-intervention, participants completed two computerized measures of attentional control with intermittent assessments of self-reported mind-wandering. Although we found some evidence for greater reductions in mind-wandering in the MBAT than the active control group, the MBAT group did not exhibit greater improvements in attentional performance. Exploratory analyses revealed working memory as a significant moderator of the observed effects, such that those in the MBAT group with higher working memory showed greater improvement in attentional control. Thus, we found preliminary evidence for attentional benefits following mindfulness training only in individuals with high working memory. Our results call for more rigorous implementation of RCT methodology in future investigations of mindfulness training’s benefits for cognitive functioning in older adults

A load on my mind: Evidence that anhedonic depression is like multi-tasking

a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Multi-tasking can increase susceptibility to distraction, affecting whether irrelevant objects capture attention. Similarly, people with depression often struggle to concentrate when performing cognitively demanding tasks. This parallel suggests that depression is like multi-tasking. To test this idea, we examined relations between self-reported levels of anhedonic depression (a dimension that reflects the unique aspects of depression not shared with anxiety or other forms of distress) and attention capture by salient items in a visual search task. Furthermore, we compared these relations to the effects of performing a concurrent auditory task on attention capture. Strikingly, both multi-tasking and elevated levels of anhedonic depression were associated with increased capture by uniquely colored items, but decreased capture by abruptly appearing items. At least with respect to attention capture and distraction, depression seems to be functionally comparable to juggling a second, unrelated cognitive task

Anxiety type modulates immediate versus delayed engagement of attention-related brain regions

Habituation of the fear response, critical for the treatment of anxiety, is inconsistently observed during exposure to threatening stimuli. One potential explanation for this inconsistency is differential attentional engagement with negatively valenced stimuli as a function of anxiety type.The present study tested this hypothesis by examining patterns of neural habituation associated with anxious arousal, characterized by panic symptoms and immediate engagement with negatively valenced stimuli, versus anxious apprehension, characterized by engagement in worry to distract from negatively valenced stimuli.As predicted, the two anxiety types evidenced distinct patterns of attentional engagement. Anxious arousal was associated with immediate activation in attention-related brain regions that habituated over time, whereas anxious apprehension was associated with delayed activation in attention-related brain regions that occurred only after habituation in a worry-related brain region.Results further elucidate mechanisms involved in attention to negatively valenced stimuli and indicate that anxiety is a heterogeneous construct with regard to attention to such stimuli.publishe