Background: Cognitive control training (CCT) has gained attention in recent years as a preventative intervention in the context of major depressive disorder. To date, uncertainty exists around the working mechanisms of CCT and how its effects unfold overtime.
Objective: This study aimed to examine cognitive and affective transfer effects following an unusually high number of training sessions.
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
November 2024
Objective: Although many factors predict adolescent depression, risks that operate as necessary conditions (ie, absence of the factor conveys absence of the outcome) have been largely unexplored. This study aimed to evaluate which psychosocial risk factors might serve as necessary conditions for future onset of depression across adolescence.
Method: At baseline, cognitive and personality risks, symptom severity, stressful events, and past depression history were assessed among 382 adolescents (225 girls; mean age = 12.
Cognitive bias modification (CBM) has evolved from an experimental method testing cognitive mechanisms of psychopathology to a promising tool for accessible digital mental health care. While we are still discovering the conditions under which clinically relevant effects occur, the dire need for accessible, effective, and low-cost mental health tools underscores the need for implementation where such tools are available. Providing our expert opinion as Association for Cognitive Bias Modification members, we first discuss the readiness of different CBM approaches for clinical implementation, then discuss key considerations with regard to implementation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTheories of rumination have proposed different psychological factors to place one at risk for repetitive negative thinking. A comprehensive empirical test that captures the most relevant contributors to rumination is lacking. Building on influential self-regulatory and metacognitive frameworks, we modeled how key constructs in this context relate to ruminative thinking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Rumination is a major risk factor for the onset and recurrence of depressive episodes and has been associated with deficits in updating working memory content. This randomized controlled trial examines whether training updating-specific cognitive control processes reduces daily ruminative thoughts in clinically depressed individuals.
Methods: Sixty-five individuals with a current major depressive episode were randomized to 10 sessions of either cognitive control training (N = 31) or placebo training (N = 34).
Neurosci Biobehav Rev
March 2024
The aim of the present research was to develop and test the efficacy of a novel online contingent attention training (i.e., OCAT) to modify attention and interpretation biases, improve emotion regulation, and reduce emotional symptom levels in the face of major stressors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, cognitive control training (CCT) has gained momentum as an intervention to remediate cognitive impairments and decrease depressive symptoms. One promising operationalization to train cognitive control is the adaptive Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task (aPASAT). In this systematic review and meta-analysis of aPASAT training, the efficacy of the intervention and potential moderators were examined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPersisting executive functioning (EF) impairments following remission from depression form an important source of disability in daily life. However, little is known regarding how specific aspects of EF relate to residual depressive symptomatology. Using network analysis, the current study investigates unique associations between cognitive-, affective-, and somatic depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory 2nd edition, BDI-II) and self-reported EF (Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function - Adult version, BRIEF-A) in a sample of 161 remitted depressed individuals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWorry, a stream of negative thoughts about the future, is maintained by poor attentional control, and the tendency to attend to negative information (attention bias) and interpret ambiguity negatively (interpretation bias). Memories that integrate negative interpretations (interpretation-memory) may also contribute to worry, but this remains unexplored. We aimed to investigate how these cognitive processes are associated with worry and anxiety cross-sectionally (Phase 1), and then explore which cognitive processes from Phase 1 would predict worry and anxiety during times of high stress, namely prior to examinations (Phase 2), and after the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (Phase 3).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt is increasingly acknowledged that cognitive impairment can play an important role in depression vulnerability. Therefore, cognitive remediation strategies, and cognitive control training (CCT) procedures have gained attention in recent years as possible interventions for depression. Recent studies suggest a small to medium effect on indicators of depression vulnerability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAttention bias modification (ABM) was developed to alleviate anxious symptoms by way of a reduction in anxiety-linked attentional bias to threat. Central to the rational of ABM is a learning-related reconfiguration of attentional biases. Yet, the neuroplastic changes in brain structure that underlie this learning are unresolved.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecent research suggests beneficial effects of cognitive control training (CCT) on repetitive negative thinking (RNT), a key risk factor for internalizing symptomatology. However, relatively little is known regarding predictors of adherence to internet-delivered CCT as well as moderators of treatment effects for this intervention. Answering these questions could improve efficiency of clinical implementation of CCT as an eHealth intervention.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudies suggest that cognitive control training shows potential as a preventive intervention for depression. At the same time, little is known regarding the mechanisms underlying effects of cognitive control training. Informed by theoretical frameworks of cognitive risk for recurrent depression (De Raedt & Koster, 2010; Siegle et al.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCognitive control training has gained traction as an intervention for reducing anxiety and depression vulnerability in adults. There are, however, a limited number of studies investigating such training interventions for reducing symptomology of anxiety and depression in children and adolescents. Thus, we aimed to provide a robust review and qualitative synthesis of the available research in young people.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Already a major health concern, late-life depression (LLD) is expected to form an increasing problem in the aging population. Moreover, despite current treatments, LLD is associated with a poor long-term prognosis and high rate of chronicity. Treatment provision and treatment accordingly warrant improvement, where add-on treatments might contribute to the efficacy of conventional therapies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReward enhances stimulus processing in the visual cortex, but the mechanisms through which this effect occurs remain unclear. Reward prospect can both increase the deployment of voluntary attention and increase the salience of previously neutral stimuli. In this study, we orthogonally manipulated reward and voluntary attention while human participants performed a global motion detection task.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAttentional deficits as well as attentional biases towards negative material are related to major depression and might maintain chronicity. However, studies investigating attentional deficits and attentional biases in chronic, treatment-resistant depressed are lacking. The aim of the current study was to compare measures of attentional deficits and attentional bias between chronic, treatment-resistant depressed outpatients and never-depressed control participants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccumulating evidence suggests that cognitive training may enhance well-being. Yet, mixed findings imply that individual differences and training characteristics may interact to moderate training efficacy. To investigate this possibility, the current paper describes a protocol for a data-driven individual-level meta-analysis study aimed at developing personalized cognitive training.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSeveral versions of the dot probe detection task are frequently used to assess maladaptive attentional processes associated with a broad range of psychopathology and health behavior, including eating behavior and weight. However, there are serious concerns about the reliability of the indices derived from the paradigm as measurement of attentional bias toward or away from salient stimuli. The present paper gives an overview of different attentional bias indices used in psychopathology research and scrutinizes three types of indices (the traditional attentional bias score, the dynamic trial-level base scores, and the probability index) calculated from a pictorial version of the dot probe task to assess food-related attentional biases in children and youngsters with and without obesity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Objectives: Individuals with features of borderline personality disorder (BPD) are highly sensitive to social rejection. Working memory (WM) may play a critical role in processing emotional interpersonal information in BPD. Yet, little is known about how emotional WM operations are related to sensitivity to rejection cues and BPD features.
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