The mind wanders to dark places: Mind-wandering catalyzes rumination in the context of negative affect and impulsivity.

Spontaneous mind-wandering has been theorized to increase susceptibility for rumination, contributing to risk for major depressive disorder (MDD). Clarifying whether-and under what circumstances-mind-wandering leads to rumination could inform the development of targeted interventions to reduce risk for ruminative sequelae. Using intensively sampled data in 44 young adults with remitted MDD and 38 healthy volunteers with 1,558 total observations collected from 2018 to 2022, we conducted multilevel models to investigate temporal relationships between mind-wandering and rumination. Contextual factors (e.g., intensity of negative affect; momentary impulsivity) and individual factors (e.g., MDD history) were examined as moderators of these relationships. Mind-wandering predicted increased rumination, whereas rumination did not predict increased mind-wandering. When individuals experienced greater negative affect or acted more impulsively compared to their usual levels, they showed a stronger relationship between mind-wandering and subsequent rumination. Depression history did not significantly moderate temporal relationships between mind-wandering and rumination. Spontaneous mind-wandering may transition into rumination, particularly during moments when people experience more negative affect or impulsivity compared to usual. Delivering interventions in these moments could reduce risk for ruminative sequelae. The tendency to ruminate in response to mind-wandering is suggested to be consistent regardless of depression history, suggesting the transdiagnostic and dimensional nature of rumination as a possible consequence of mind-wandering. Future work is needed to determine whether these associations are generalizable across the lifespan. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Momentary impulsivity interferes with emotion regulation strategy prioritization in everyday life in remitted depression.

BACKGROUND: Selectively prioritizing some emotion regulation (ER) strategies over others has been shown to predict well-being; however, it is unclear what mechanisms underlie this process. Impulsivity, which captures both top-down control of and bottom-up reactivity to emotions, is one potential mechanism of interest. METHODS: Using multilevel mediation modeling, we investigated whether lower ER strategy prioritization (i.e., lower between-strategy variability) mediates the relationship between greater momentary impulsivity and lower ER success in 82 individuals with remitted depression or no history of a mental disorder (1558 observations). To determine the specific effect of impulsivity, we covaried for mean regulatory effort and negative affect. RESULTS: The indirect effect of impulsivity on ER success was significant at the within-person, but not between-person, level. Specifically, in moments when individuals endorsed more impulsivity than usual, they showed less ER strategy prioritization than usual, which predicted less successful ER. Individuals who, on average, reported more impulsivity indicated lower ER strategy prioritization, but no difference in ER success. CONCLUSION: ER strategy prioritization mediated the within-person relationship between greater impulsivity and lower ER success. Interventions focused on training individuals to selectively prioritize ER strategies may improve ER success, particularly when individuals are feeling more impulsive than usual.

Human emotion processing accuracy, negative biases, and fMRI activation are associated with childhood trauma.

Introduction: Emerging literature suggests that childhood trauma may influence facial emotion perception (FEP), with the potential to negatively bias both emotion perception and reactions to emotion-related inputs. Negative emotion perception biases are associated with a range of psychiatric and behavioral problems, potentially due or as a result of difficult social interactions. Unfortunately, there is a poor understanding of whether observed negative biases are related to childhood trauma history, depression history, or processes common to (and potentially causative of) both experiences. Methods: The present cross-sectional study examines the relation between FEP and neural activation during FEP with retrospectively reported childhood trauma in young adult participants with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD, n = 41) and without psychiatric histories (healthy controls [HC], n = 34). Accuracy of emotion categorization and negative bias errors during FEP and brain activation were each measured during exposure to fearful, angry, happy, sad, and neutral faces. We examined participant behavioral and neural responses in relation to total reported severity of childhood abuse and neglect (assessed with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, CTQ). Results: Results corrected for multiple comparisons indicate that higher trauma scores were associated with greater likelihood of miscategorizing happy faces as angry. Activation in the right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) positively correlated with trauma scores when participants viewed faces that they correctly categorized as angry, fearful, sad, and happy. Discussion: Identifying the neural mechanisms by which childhood trauma and MDD may change facial emotion perception could inform targeted prevention efforts for MDD or related interpersonal difficulties.

Autonomic complexity dynamically indexes affect regulation in everyday life.

Affect regulation often is disrupted in depression. Understanding biomarkers of affect regulation in ecologically valid contexts is critical for identifying moments when interventions can be delivered to improve regulation and may have utility for identifying which individuals are vulnerable to psychopathology. Autonomic complexity, which includes linear and nonlinear indices of heart rate variability, has been proposed as a novel marker of neurovisceral integration. However, it is not clear how autonomic complexity tracks with regulation in everyday life, and whether low complexity serves as a marker of related psychopathology. To measure regulation phenotypes with diminished influence of current symptoms, 37 young adults with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD) and 28 healthy comparisons (HCs) completed ambulatory assessments of autonomic complexity and affect regulation across one week in everyday life. Multilevel models indicated that in HCs, but not rMDD, autonomic complexity fluctuated in response to regulation cues, increasing in response to reappraisal and distraction and decreasing in response to negative affect. Higher complexity across the week predicted greater everyday regulation success, whereas greater variability of complexity predicted lower (and less variable) negative affect, rumination, and mind-wandering. Results suggest that ambulatory assessment of autonomic complexity can passively index dynamic aspects of real-world affect and regulation, and that dynamic physiological reactivity to regulation is restricted in rMDD. These results demonstrate how intensive sampling of dynamic, nonlinear regulatory processes can advance our understanding of potential mechanisms underlying psychopathology. Such measurements might inform how to test interventions to enhance neurovisceral complexity and affect regulation success in real time. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

A meta-analysis on the uncinate fasciculus in depression.

Aberrant microstructure of the uncinate fasciculus (UNC), a white matter (WM) tract implicated in emotion regulation, has been hypothesized as a neurobiological mechanism of depression. However, studies testing this hypothesis have yielded inconsistent results. The present meta-analysis consolidates evidence from 44 studies comparing fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD), two metrics characterizing WM microstructure, of the UNC in individuals with depression (n = 5016) to healthy individuals (n = 18 425). We conduct meta-regressions to identify demographic and clinical characteristics that contribute to cross-study heterogeneity in UNC findings. UNC FA was reduced in individuals with depression compared to healthy individuals. UNC RD was comparable between individuals with depression and healthy individuals. Comorbid anxiety explained inter-study heterogeneity in UNC findings. Depression is associated with perturbations in UNC microstructure, specifically with respect to UNC FA and not UNC RD. The association between depression and UNC microstructure appears to be moderated by anxiety. Future work should unravel the cellular mechanisms contributing to aberrant UNC microstructure in depression; clarify the relationship between UNC microstructure, depression, and anxiety; and link UNC microstructure to psychological processes, such as emotion regulation.

Differential effects of transcranial current type on heart rate variability during emotion regulation in internalizing psychopathologies.

BACKGROUND: Internalizing psychopathologies (IPs) are characterized by disruptions in emotion regulation (ER). A potential target for ER modulation in individuals with IPs is the theta band. We hypothesized that offset theta-tACS (transcranial alternating current stimulation) would result in more enhanced ER, indexed by greater increase in heart rate variability (HRV), than transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in participants with IPs. METHODS: This pilot study utilized a double-blind, pseudo-counterbalanced design. Participants with internalizing psychopathologies (anxiety and depression) were randomly assigned to receive either offset theta-tACS (n = 14) or tDCS (n = 15) and underwent four sessions of stimulation (two sham). In both arms, there were alternating iterations of an emotion regulation task (ERT) during or immediately after stimulation and rest. Heart rate data were collected during each ERT and rest iteration, and analyses were completed using high-frequency (HF) and root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD) HRV metrics. RESULTS: tACS participants consistently displayed increases in both HRV metrics from Time 1 to Time 4. Participants receiving tDCS displayed few significant changes in HF-HRV and no significant changes in RMSSD-HRV. LIMITATIONS: Due to the small sample size, analyses were limited. Additionally, the lack of a baseline ERT makes it difficult to determine overall ER improvement. CONCLUSIONS: tACS appears to increase ER capacity as reflected in increased HRV in individuals with internalizing psychopathologies, particularly after two sessions of stimulation. This study adds validity to the use of tACS as a neuromodulatory technique in cognitive and clinical research. Additional research is required to better understand potential carry-over effects of multiple sessions of stimulation.

Neuromodulatory effects of transcranial electrical stimulation on emotion regulation in internalizing psychopathologies.

OBJECTIVE: We hypothesize offset theta-tACS (transcranial alternating current stimulation) improves emotion regulation (ER) and psychopathology more than transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in participants with internalizing psychopathologies (IPs). METHODS: This pilot study utilized a double-blind, pseudo-counterbalanced, sham-controlled design with participants with IPs. Participants were assigned to receive tDCS or tACS, underwent four stimulation sessions (two sham), and completed an emotion regulation task (ERT) during or after stimulation. Participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory before/after the study, the Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Index after each ERT, and rated their arousal, valence, and perceived reappraisal ability during the ERT. RESULTS: Participants receiving either stimulation type showed a reduction in anxiety, depression, and valence and arousal ratings. We additionally discovered an effect demonstrating those who received sham stimulation first displayed little-to-no change in any score across the study, but tACS participants who received verum stimulation first showed significant improvements in each metric. CONCLUSIONS: Improving ER capabilities via theta tACS has the potential to yield beneficial clinical effects. SIGNIFICANCE: This study adds validity to the use of non-invasive neuromodulatory methods, especially tACS, to alleviate IPs. Additional research is needed to better understand the effects of sham stimulation. Careful consideration of sham incorporation should be made in future studies.

Relations of gray matter volume to dimensional measures of cognition and affect in mood disorders.

Understanding the relationship between brain measurements and behavioral performance is an important step in developing approaches for early identification of any psychiatric difficulties and interventions to modify these challenges. Conventional methods to identify associations between regional brain volume and behavioral measures are not optimized, either in scale, scope, or specificity. To find meaningful associations between brain and behavior with greater sensitivity and precision, we applied data-driven factor analytic models to identify and extract individual differences in latent cognitive functions embedded across several computerized cognitive tasks. Furthermore, we simultaneously utilized a keyword-based neuroimaging meta-analytic tool (i.e., NeuroSynth), restricted atlas-parcel matching, and factor-analytic models to narrow down the scope of search and to further aggregate gray matter volume (GMV) data into empirical clusters. We recruited an early adult community cross-sectional sample (Total n = 177, age 18-30) that consisted of individuals with no history of any mood disorder (healthy controls, n = 44), those with remitted major depressive disorder (rMDD, n = 104), and those with a diagnosis of bipolar disorder currently in euthymic state (eBP, n = 29). Study participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and separately completed behavioral testing using computerized measures. Factor-analyzing five computerized tasks used to assess aspects of cognitive and affective processing resulted in seven latent dimensions: (a) Emotional Memory, (b) Interference Resolution, (c) Reward Sensitivity, (d) Complex Inhibitory Control, (e) Facial Emotion Sensitivity, (f) Sustained attention, and (g)Simple Impulsivity/Response Style. These seven dimensions were then labeled with specific keywords which were used to create neuroanatomical maps using NeuroSynth. These masks were further subdivided into GMV clusters. Using regression, we identified GMV clusters that were predictive of individual differences across each of the aforementioned seven cognitive dimensions. We demonstrate that a dimensional approach consistent with core principles of RDoC can be utilized to identify structural variability predictive of critical dimensions of human behavior.

Increased sensitivity of insula to supraliminal faces in adults with histories of mood disorders and self-injury.

BACKGROUND: Mood disorders are associated with neurobiological disruptions in subliminal and supraliminal emotion processing. There may be additional variation based on sex and the presence of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs). Examining individuals in remission allows us to understand trait-like emotion processing characteristics that persist in the absence of symptoms. This study investigates neural processing in response to supraliminal and subliminal emotional stimuli based upon mood disorder diagnosis, sex, and SITBs. METHODS: Seventy-five participants with a history of any mood disorder (AMD; 52 female) and 27 healthy controls (HC; 14 female) completed a fMRI task presenting subliminal and supraliminal facial stimuli. Within the AMD group, 20 had no history of SITBs, 26 had histories of suicidal ideation only, and 27 had histories of both SI and self-injurious behavior. We examined activation of salience network regions of interest including the amygdala, insula, and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex (sgACC) during the task. RESULTS: AMD showed greater insula activation in response to happy faces relative to sad faces, which was not seen in the HC group. Males exhibited lower insula activation in response to sad faces relative happy faces, a pattern not seen in females. Individuals with SITBs demonstrated a lack of sgACC blunting during supraliminal versus subliminal trials. CONCLUSIONS: We found different patterns of neural responses related to mood disorder status, sex, and SITBs. Findings highlight the importance of considering heterogeneity within diagnoses and examining neurobiological features in the context of remission.

Decentering predicts attenuated perseverative thought and internalizing symptoms following stress exposure: A multi-level, multi-wave study.

While research identifies a growing list of risk factors for anxiety and depression, it is equally important to identify potential protective factors that may prevent or reduce vulnerability to developing internalizing psychopathology. We hypothesized that forms of perseverative thinking, such as rumination and worry, act as mechanisms linking negative life experiences and prospective symptoms of anxiety and depression. More specifically, we investigated whether decentering, the meta-cognitive capacity to adopt a distanced perspective toward one's thoughts and feelings, serves as a protective factor at various points along this mediational pathway. A sample of 181 undergraduate students were recruited and assessed at five time points over a 12-week period. Multilevel modeling indicated that decentering was associated with an attenuated impact of (1) negative events on prospective depressive symptoms; (2) negative events on prospective brooding, and (3) brooding, pondering and worry on prospective internalizing symptoms. Multilevel moderated mediation analyses provided partial support for the hypothesis that perseverative thinking would mediate the longitudinal associations between negative life events and internalizing symptoms, with decentering attenuating risk at several connections of the indirect pathways. The strongest support was provided for moderated mediation models in which decentering was associated with attenuated relationships between negative events, brooding, and symptoms of depression. This study is the first to elucidate the role of decentering as a protective factor against anxiety and depressive symptoms at different points in the path from stress to perseverative thought to internalizing symptoms. Decentering therefore may be a critical target for clinical intervention to promote resilience against anxiety and depression.

Using Network Parcels and Resting-State Networks to Estimate Correlates of Mood Disorder and Related Research Domain Criteria Constructs of Reward Responsiveness and Inhibitory Control.

BACKGROUND: Resting-state graph-based network edges can be powerful tools for identification of mood disorders. We address whether these edges can be integrated with Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) constructs for accurate identification of mood disorder-related markers, while minimizing active symptoms of disease. METHODS: We compared 132 individuals with currently remitted or euthymic mood disorder with 65 healthy comparison participants, ages 18-30 years. Subsets of smaller brain parcels, combined into three prominent networks and one network of parcels overlapping across these networks, were used to compare edge differences between groups. Consistent with the RDoC framework, we evaluated individual differences with performance measure regressors of inhibitory control and reward responsivity. Within an omnibus regression model, we predicted edges related to diagnostic group membership, performance within both RDoC domains, and relevant interactions. RESULTS: There were several edges of mood disorder group, predominantly of greater connectivity across networks, different than those related to individual differences in inhibitory control and reward responsivity. Edges related to diagnosis and inhibitory control did not align well with prior literature, whereas edges in relation to reward responsivity constructs showed greater alignment with prior literature. Those edges in interaction between RDoC constructs and diagnosis showed a divergence for inhibitory control (negative interactions in default mode) relative to reward (positive interactions with salience and emotion network). CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, there is evidence that prior simple network models of mood disorders are currently of insufficient biological or diagnostic clarity or that parcel-based edges may be insufficiently sensitive for these purposes.

Nonsuicidal self-injury scar concealment from the self and others.

Despite the high prevalence of nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) and resultant physical scarring, few studies have explored the occurrence and psychological implications of concealing NSSI scars. This study examines NSSI scar concealment from the self and others, as well as the cognitive, affective, and self-injury-related correlates of these concealment practices. This study aimed to characterize the extent to which individuals who engage in concealment practices have a history of, or desire to engage in, treatment for NSSI specifically geared towards NSSI scarring. Adults with at least one NSSI scar (N = 278) completed online questionnaires measuring NSSI engagement and scarring, scar concealment behaviors, scar-related cognitions, as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression, and recent suicidal ideation and NSSI urges. Results indicate that the degree of scar concealment from the self and from others is associated with greater experiences of negative scar-related cognitions, higher levels of anxiety and depressive symptomatology, and higher severity of NSSI urges. These correlations persisted after accounting for NSSI severity indices, including extent of NSSI scarring, suggesting that scar concealment practices may be important clinical indicators of current distress and potential future self-injury. Future research should explore the extent to which scar concealment practices are longitudinally associated with distress and risk for NSSI maintenance.

Inflexible autonomic responses to sadness predict habitual and real-world rumination: A multi-level, multi-wave study.

Inflexibility of the autonomic nervous system is relevant to depression vulnerability, but the downstream behavioral consequences of autonomic inflexibility are not well understood. Rumination, a perseverative thinking style that characterizes depression, is one candidate phenotype relevant to autonomic inflexibility. Undergraduates (N = 134) completed a sadness induction while respiratory sinus arrhythmia was measured, and completed four waves of follow-up over twelve weeks during which rumination, stressful events, and symptoms of depression were measured. Individuals with less autonomic flexibility had higher levels of trait rumination, and were more likely to ruminate in daily life, regardless of stress exposure, whereas individuals with more autonomic flexibility ruminated more only in the context of stress. These findings provide the first evidence that autonomic inflexibility may confer vulnerability to context-insensitive rumination. This work suggests a potential behavioral mechanism by which autonomic inflexibility leads to problems with self-regulation and depression, suggesting multiple avenues for intervention to target these markers of vulnerability.

Effects of mood and aging on keystroke dynamics metadata and their diurnal patterns in a large open-science sample: A BiAffect iOS study.

OBJECTIVE: Ubiquitous technologies can be leveraged to construct ecologically relevant metrics that complement traditional psychological assessments. This study aims to determine the feasibility of smartphone-derived real-world keyboard metadata to serve as digital biomarkers of mood. MATERIALS AND METHODS: BiAffect, a real-world observation study based on a freely available iPhone app, allowed the unobtrusive collection of typing metadata through a custom virtual keyboard that replaces the default keyboard. User demographics and self-reports for depression severity (Patient Health Questionnaire-8) were also collected. Using >14 million keypresses from 250 users who reported demographic information and a subset of 147 users who additionally completed at least 1 Patient Health Questionnaire, we employed hierarchical growth curve mixed-effects models to capture the effects of mood, demographics, and time of day on keyboard metadata. RESULTS: We analyzed 86 541 typing sessions associated with a total of 543 Patient Health Questionnaires. Results showed that more severe depression relates to more variable typing speed (P < .001), shorter session duration (P < .001), and lower accuracy (P < .05). Additionally, typing speed and variability exhibit a diurnal pattern, being fastest and least variable at midday. Older users exhibit slower and more variable typing, as well as more pronounced slowing in the evening. The effects of aging and time of day did not impact the relationship of mood to typing variables and were recapitulated in the 250-user group. CONCLUSIONS: Keystroke dynamics, unobtrusively collected in the real world, are significantly associated with mood despite diurnal patterns and effects of age, and thus could serve as a foundation for constructing digital biomarkers.

A Lifespan Model of Interference Resolution and Inhibitory Control: Risk for Depression and Changes with Illness Progression.

The cognitive processes involved in inhibitory control accuracy (IC) and interference resolution speed (IR) or broadly - inhibition - are discussed in this review, and both are described within the context of a lifespan model of mood disorders. Inhibitory control (IC) is a binary outcome (success or no for response selection and inhibition of unwanted responses) for any given event that is influenced to an extent by IR. IR refers to the process of inhibition, which can be manipulated by task design in earlier and later stages through use of distractors and timing, and manipulation of individual differences in response proclivity. We describe the development of these two processes across the lifespan, noting factors that influence this development (e.g., environment, adversity and stress) as well as inherent difficulties in assessing IC/IR prior to adulthood (e.g., cross-informant reports). We use mood disorders as an illustrative example of how this multidimensional construct can be informative to state, trait, vulnerability and neuroprogression of disease. We present aggregated data across numerous studies and methodologies to examine the lifelong development and degradation of this subconstruct of executive function, particularly in mood disorders. We highlight the challenges in identifying and measuring IC/IR in late life, including specificity to complex, comorbid disease processes. Finally, we discuss some potential avenues for treatment and accommodation of these difficulties across the lifespan, including newer treatments using cognitive remediation training and neuromodulation.

Brain-behavioral adaptability predicts response to cognitive behavioral therapy for emotional disorders: A person-centered event-related potential study.

Single-trial-level analyses afford the ability to link neural indices of elaborative attention (such as the late positive potential [LPP], an event-related potential) with downstream markers of attentional processing (such as reaction time [RT]). This approach can provide useful information about individual differences in information processing, such as the ability to adapt behavior based on attentional demands ("brain-behavioral adaptability"). Anxiety and depression are associated with maladaptive information processing implicating aberrant cognition-emotion interactions, but whether brain-behavioral adaptability predicts response to psychotherapy is not known. We used a novel person-centered, trial-level analysis approach to link neural indices of stimulus processing to behavioral responses and to predict treatment outcome. Thirty-nine patients with anxiety and/or depression received 12 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Prior to treatment, patients performed a speeded reaction-time task involving briefly-presented pairs of aversive and neutral pictures while electroencephalography was recorded. Multilevel modeling demonstrated that larger LPPs predicted slower responses on subsequent trials, suggesting that increased attention to the task-irrelevant nature of pictures interfered with reaction time on subsequent trials. Whereas using LPP and RT averages did not distinguish CBT responders from nonresponders, in trial-level analyses individuals who demonstrated greater ability to benefit behaviorally (i.e., faster RT) from smaller LPPs on the previous trial (greater brain-behavioral adaptability) were more likely to respond to treatment and showed greater improvements in depressive symptoms. These results highlight the utility of trial-level analyses to elucidate variability in within-subjects, brain-behavioral attentional coupling in the context of emotion processing, in predicting response to CBT for emotional disorders.

Using resting-state intrinsic network connectivity to identify suicide risk in mood disorders.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the neural substrates of suicide risk in mood disorders. Improving the identification of biomarkers of suicide risk, as indicated by a history of suicide-related behavior (SB), could lead to more targeted treatments to reduce risk. METHODS: Participants were 18 young adults with a mood disorder with a history of SB (as indicated by endorsing a past suicide attempt), 60 with a mood disorder with a history of suicidal ideation (SI) but not SB, 52 with a mood disorder with no history of SI or SB (MD), and 82 healthy comparison participants (HC). Resting-state functional connectivity within and between intrinsic neural networks, including cognitive control network (CCN), salience and emotion network (SEN), and default mode network (DMN), was compared between groups. RESULTS: Several fronto-parietal regions (k > 57, p < 0.005) were identified in which individuals with SB demonstrated distinct patterns of connectivity within (in the CCN) and across networks (CCN-SEN and CCN-DMN). Connectivity with some of these same regions also distinguished the SB group when participants were re-scanned after 1-4 months. Extracted data defined SB group membership with good accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity (79-88%). CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that individuals with a history of SB in the context of mood disorders may show reliably distinct patterns of intrinsic network connectivity, even when compared to those with mood disorders without SB. Resting-state fMRI is a promising tool for identifying subtypes of patients with mood disorders who may be at risk for suicidal behavior.

Using ambulatory assessment to measure dynamic risk processes in affective disorders.

BACKGROUND: Rapid advances in the capability and affordability of digital technology have begun to allow for the intensive monitoring of psychological and physiological processes associated with affective disorders in daily life. This technology may enable researchers to overcome some limitations of traditional methods for studying risk in affective disorders, which often (implicitly) assume that risk factors are distal and static - that they do not change over time. In contrast, ambulatory assessment (AA) is particularly suited to measure dynamic "real-world" processes and to detect fluctuations in proximal risk for outcomes of interest. METHOD: We highlight key questions about proximal and distal risk for affective disorders that AA methods (with multilevel modeling, or fully-idiographic methods) allow researchers to evaluate. RESULTS: Key questions include between-subject questions to understand who is at risk (e.g., are people with more affective instability at greater risk than others?) and within-subject questions to understand when risk is most acute among those who are at risk (e.g., does suicidal ideation increase when people show more sympathetic activation than usual?). We discuss practical study design and analytic strategy considerations for evaluating questions of risk in context, and the benefits and limitations of self-reported vs. passively-collected AA. LIMITATIONS: Measurements may only be as accurate as the observation period is representative of individuals' usual life contexts. Active measurement techniques are limited by the ability and willingness to self-report. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude by discussing how monitoring proximal risk with AA may be leveraged for translation into personalized, real-time interventions to reduce risk.

Influence of childhood adversity, approach motivation traits, and depression on individual differences in brain activation during reward anticipation.

Reward anticipation dysfunction is associated with major depressive disorder (MDD), but is not universally observed in individuals with MDD. Reward anticipation deficits have also been linked to childhood adversity (CA) and approach/avoidance traits. The present study evaluated whether severity of CA (as measured by the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) and approach/avoidance traits predict individual differences in blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response to reward anticipation beyond MDD diagnosis alone. Participants were individuals with MDD (n = 23) and healthy controls (n = 27). Multiple regression was conducted using CTQ scores, trait approach/avoidance scores, and diagnosis to predict activation during reward anticipation in a monetary incentive delay fMRI task. Across groups, higher trait reward responsiveness predicted increased activation in the hippocampus, cingulate cortex, and medial frontal gyrus. Greater CTQ scores predicted increased reward network activation. Overall, CTQ and reward responsiveness scores predicted more variance in reward anticipation activation than diagnosis. These findings suggest that clinicians should assess history of childhood adversity and trait reward responsiveness when treating individuals with MDD.

A Latent Structure Analysis of Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression in Adolescence.

Whether cognitive vulnerability to depression exists along a continuum of severity or as a qualitatively discrete phenomenological entity has direct bearing on theoretical formulations of risk for depression and clinical risk assessment. This question is of particular relevance to adolescence, given that cognitive vulnerability appears to coalesce and rates of depression begin to rise markedly during this period of development. Although a dimensional view is often assumed, it is necessary to submit this assumption to direct empirical evaluation. Taxometric analysis is a family of statistical techniques developed directly to test such assumptions. The present study applied taxometric methods to address this question in a community sample of early adolescents (n = 485), drawing on three indices of cognitive vulnerability to depression (i.e., negative inferential style, ruminative response style, self-referent information processing). The results of three taxometric analyses (i.e., mean above minus below a cut [MAMBAC], maximum eigenvalue [MAXEIG], and latent mode [L-Mode]) were consistent in unambiguously supporting a dimensional conceptualization of this construct. The latent structure of the tested indices of cognitive vulnerability to depression in adolescence appears to exist along a continuum of severity rather than as a discrete clinical entity.