Selective Attention in Depression Influence of Emotionality and Personal Relevance

Schlosser N, Mensebach C, Rullkoetter N, et al. Selective Attention in Depression Influence of Emotionality and Personal Relevance. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease. 2011;199(9):696-702.Selective attention to negative stimuli has been discussed as being an essential characteristic of depressive disorder. Theories and empirical data, however, are contradictory. The present study addressed the question of whether depressive patients selectively attend to negatively valenced and personally relevant or irrelevant stimuli and whether they habituate to these stimuli. Thirty-one inpatients with major depressive disorder and 37 healthy controls participated in the study. They underwent a modification of the emotional Stroop paradigm. The results indicated that personally relevant stimuli evoked more pronounced Stroop interference than did stimuli without personal relevance in all subjects. Furthermore, habituation to personally relevant negative stimuli was seen in both depressive patients and control subjects. The present findings question a generally negative attentional bias as being a specific characteristic of depressive disorder. Furthermore, as depressed patients habituated to personally relevant negative stimuli, exposure therapy might be suitable for the treatment of depressive disorder

The impact of neutral and emotionally negative distraction on memory performance and its relation to memory complaints in major depression

Beblo T, Mensebach C, Wingenfeld K, et al. The impact of neutral and emotionally negative distraction on memory performance and its relation to memory complaints in major depression. Psychiatry Research. 2010;178(1):106-111.Patients with major depression (MDD) often report relevant cognitive problems in everyday life while performance in standardised neuropsychological tests is not severely disturbed. This discrepancy may partly be due to the differences between the demands of everyday life with the presence of emotionally relevant distractors and standardised neuropsychological settings without those distractors. In the present study, we hypothesise that patients with major depression (MDD) show an increased distractibility towards emotionally negative stimuli and that this distractibility is related to complaints of cognitive functioning in everyday life. Thirty MDD patients and 48 healthy participants performed our recently developed learning paradigm with neutrally and negatively valenced distraction as well as without distraction. Both groups also performed a neuropsychological test battery as well as self- and observer ratings of impairments in memory and attention in every day life. In the MDD sample, cognitive impairments were reported by the patients and their relatives but were not found in the neuropsychological tests. We found a trend towards a poorer memory performance with negatively valenced distraction in the MDD sample when compared to the performance of healthy subjects. However, this impairment was not related to the self- and observer ratings. This result may be due to the fact that the distractors were not personally relevant to the subjects whereas everyday life implies such distractors. Further research is needed to explore everyday cognitive functioning of patients with MDD

Relationship between coping with negative life-events and psychopathology: Major depression and borderline personality disorder

Wingenfeld K, Mensebach C, Rullkoetter N, et al. Relationship between coping with negative life-events and psychopathology: Major depression and borderline personality disorder. PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY-THEORY RESEARCH AND PRACTICE. 2009;82(4):421-425.Ninety psychiatric in-patients and 73 controls have been asked about their coping styles to negative life-events. Patients reported more emotion-oriented coping than controls. Emotion-oriented coping style was positively correlated with psychopathology, while task-oriented coping was negatively correlated with psychopathology in events which the participants had difficulties dealing with

Associations of childhood trauma, trauma in adulthood and previous-year stress with psychopathology in patients with major depression and borderline personality disorder

Wingenfeld K, Schaffrath C, Rullkoetter N, et al. Associations of childhood trauma, trauma in adulthood and previous-year stress with psychopathology in patients with major depression and borderline personality disorder. Child Abuse & Neglect. 2011;35(8):647-654

Attentional Bias to Personally Relevant Words in Borderline Personality Disorder is Strongly Related to Comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Wingenfeld K, Mensebach C, Rullkoetter N, et al. Attentional Bias to Personally Relevant Words in Borderline Personality Disorder is Strongly Related to Comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Journal of Personality Disorders. 2009;23(2):141-155.Current research indicates altered inhibitory functioning in borderline personality disorder (BPD). The emotional stroop task is a widely used method for investigating inhibition of interference. In the present study we used an individualized version of the emotional stroop task to investigate inhibitory functioning in BPD with respect not only to valence but also to personal relevance of the stimuli. Thirty-one BPD patients and 49 healthy controls performed the individual emotional stroop task that consisted of (1) words related to personal negative life events that were currently relevant (2) words related to personal negative life events that were not currently relevant, (3) negative words that were not personally relevant, and (4) neutral words. BPD patients showed greater interference only for words related to personal negative life events with current relevance. A comparison between BPD patients with and without posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) revealed reduced inhibitory functioning only in BPD patients with PTSD. Inhibition of interference in BPD patients seems not to be altered in general but is exclusively disturbed in those with comorbid PTSD when highly relevant personal factors are the focus of attention

Die deutsche Version des „Early Trauma Inventory” (ETI). Erste psychometrische Charakterisierung eines Interviews zur Erfassung traumatischer Lebensereignisse in der Kindheit und Jugend

Wingenfeld K, Driessen M, Mensebach C, et al. Die deutsche Version des „Early Trauma Inventory” (ETI). Erste psychometrische Charakterisierung eines Interviews zur Erfassung traumatischer Lebensereignisse in der Kindheit und Jugend. Diagnostica. 2011;57(1):27-38.Zusammenfassung. Für den deutschsprachigen Raum stehen derzeit kaum evaluierte Instrumente zur Erfassung traumatischer Ereignisse in der Kindheit und Jugend zur Verfügung. Während das strukturierte klinische Interview für DSM-IV das Vorliegen einer Traumatisierung in der Kindheit und Jugend mittels eines binären Items erfasst, wird mit dem „Early Trauma Inventory” (ETI; Bremner, Vermetten & Mazure, 2000 ) ein breites Spektrum traumatischer Ereignisse erhoben. Beim ETI handelt es sich um ein halbstandardisiertes klinisches Interview mit den Skalen „Emotionale Erfahrungen”, „Erzieherische/Körperliche Bestrafung”, „Sexuelle Erlebnisse” und „Generelle Traumata”. An einer Stichprobe von 230 Probanden wurden die Reliabilität und Validität der deutschen Übersetzung überprüft. Es konnten gute Reliabilitätskoeffizienten gefunden werden sowie hohe bis moderate Korrelationen zwischen dem ETI und einem Fragebogen zur Erfassung traumatischer Erfahrungen in der Kindheit (CTQ). Niedrigere Korrelationskoeffizienten fanden sich zwischen dem ETI und entfernt assoziierten Konstrukten, wie z.B. Depressivität. Insgesamt sprechen die Ergebnisse für eine zufriedenstellende psychometrische Qualität des ETI

Emotion-induced memory dysfunction in borderline personality disorder

Mensebach C, Wingenfeld K, Driessen M, et al. Emotion-induced memory dysfunction in borderline personality disorder. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry. 2009;14(6):524-541.Introduction. Although emotional dysregulation is a core problem in borderline personality disorder (BPD), few neuropsychological studies have evaluated the impact of emotion. The present study aimed at the comprehensive investigation of verbal memory functions with and without emotionally relevant interference in BPD. BPD patients were expected to perform as well as healthy subjects in standard memory tasks but to show fewer capacities to control for emotionally negative interference. Methods. 47 patients with BPD and 70 healthy control subjects participated. An experimental task assessed verbal memory with respect to standard and emotionally relevant and neutral interference learning conditions. Applied standard tests covered working memory, delayed memory, and word fluency. Results. Memory performances of BPD patients were impaired when negatively valenced interference was conducted but normal in all other conditions. These results remained stable after controlling for comorbid major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Discussion. The present findings suggest no general impairment of verbal memory functions in BPD but control and inhibition of interference by emotionally significant material seem to be disturbed