Training cognitive control over emotional material in working memory: effects on the frequency of using rumination and its impact on daily mood in depressed patients

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Depression is a highly prevalent mental disorder with immense personal and societal burden. Despite effective psychotherapeutic and pharmacological treatments, relapse rates remain high. One of the best researched risk factor for the onset and recurrence of depressive episodes is rumination. A large body of research has demonstrated the negative consequences of rumination on depressed mood and other symptoms of depression, however, effective treatments for reducing rumination are still missing. Several researchers have postulated that the tendency to ruminate is associated with impairments in cognitive control functions. Specifically, rumination has been demonstrated to be associated with a reduced ability to remove negative material from working memory. It will thus be intriguing to train depressed individuals in removing negative material from working memory and to examine the effects of such training on rumination and mood. To date, few studies have investigated the effects of cognitive control trainings on rumination. Although some results are promising, conclusions have been restricted by important methodological limitations, such as very small sample sizes, use of non-clinical samples, lack of an active control condition, or use of neutral stimuli. Thus, the aim of the present project is to examine whether training to update emotional material in working memory will have an effect on the frequency of using rumination as well as on the impact of rumination on mood in the daily lives of clinically depressed participants. For this purpose, participants will be randomly assigned to 10 sessions of either computerized cognitive control training or an active placebo condition. Daily rumination and mood will be assessed pre- and post-training, as well as at three-month follow-up. Importantly, the present project will use ambulatory assessment to assess the effects of training on rumination and on the dynamics between mood and rumination in a naturalistic setting. Changes in the ability to update emotional material in working memory will be assessed pre- and post-training. Examining the effects of a cognitive control training on rumination will be an important further step for improving our knowledge about the underlying mechanisms of rumination. Together with other studies in this field, this may ultimately contribute to treating one of the most prominent risk factors for depression relapse.