Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy reduces clinical symptoms, but do not change frontal alpha asymmetry in people with major depression disorder.

OBJECTIVES: Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) has demonstrated to be successful in the reduction of relapse rates in patients with recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD). Little is known if MBCT is effective for treating individuals with current MDD episode and about underlying psychophysiological mechanisms of symptoms reduction. The aim of the present study was to assess effects of MBCT on depressed individuals in terms of reduction of depressive and anxiety symptoms and to evaluate if this therapeutic improvement would be reflected on neurophysiological level by shift in frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA). PARTICIPANTS: We studied 20 individuals with current MDD. DESIGN: Participants were randomly assigned either to waiting list or 8-week MBCT. Before and after the treatment we have assessed depression, anxiety, and FAA in resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) - an indicator of approach vs. withdrawal-related response dispositions and a vulnerability factor of MDD. RESULTS: In line with previous findings, reduction of depressive and anxiety symptoms, but no change in mean values of FAA in MBCT group was found. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide a support for the beneficial effects of MBCT in current MDD treatment, however, they do not support the hypothesis on alpha asymmetry change as a neural correlate of MDD improvement.

Manifestations of clinical depression in daily life: a daily diary study of descriptions of naturally occurring events.

In the present study, clinically depressed (n = 135) and non-depressed adults (n = 138) described the events that happened to them each day for two weeks, and these descriptions were content analysed. Participants also rated how stressful and how positive each event was. Multilevel analyses found that depressed individuals, compared to the non-depressed, used more negative emotion words and more pronouns and used fewer positive emotion words, and they rated events as more stressful and less positive. Stressfulness of events was positively related to the use of pronouns and negative emotion words and was negatively related to the use of positive emotion words. Relationships between positivity of events and word counts were in the opposite direction. Controlling for stressfulness or positivity of events eliminated differences between the depressed and non-depressed in word use, except for use of other-pronouns words. Compared to the non-depressed, depressed people may either experience a greater number of objectively stressful or less pleasant daily events or perceive naturally occurring daily events as more stressful and less positive, and they describe daily events in ways that are consistent with such differences.

Attention to negative words predicts daily rumination among people with clinical depression: evidence from an eye tracking and daily diary study.

The present study examined relationships between attention to negative words and daily rumination and daily adjustment in a sample of clinically depressed individuals. We recorded eye movements of 43 individuals diagnosed with major depression while they were freely viewing dysphoric, threat-related, neutral, and positive words. Then, each day for one week, participants provided measures of their daily rumination and psychological adjustment. Multilevel analyses found that attention to dysphoric and threat-related words was positively related to daily rumination and attention to threat-related words was negatively related to daily adjustment. These findings suggest that the impaired ability to disengage from negative words is positively related to rumination in daily life and is negatively related to well-being, as defined in terms of Beck's Triad.

Positive online attentional training as a means of modifying attentional and interpretational biases among the clinically depressed: An experimental study using eye tracking.

OBJECTIVE: The present study examined the effectiveness of online positive attention bias modification training (ABMT) in inducing positive attention and positive interpretational biases in depressed individuals. METHOD: Clinically depressed individuals (n = 60) were randomly assigned to one of two conditions of 14-day online ABMT. In the positive ABMT condition, a probe replaced positive stimuli in 100% of trials. In the control condition, the probe replaced positive stimuli in 50% of trials. Before and after training, we recorded eye movements during the completion of a Scrambled Sentence Task in which participants created positive or negative sentences. Participants also completed measures of symptoms of depression and anxiety. RESULTS: After training, participants in the positive ABMT condition fixated longer on positive keywords than participants in the control group and experienced a significant reduction in anxiety. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that positive AMBT can promote positive attention bias among clinically depressed individuals.