Long-term course of Ambulatory Assessment (AA-) phenotypes and ecological validation of cognitive processes in patients with recurrent depression

最近，利用动态评估（AA）在微观层面（爆发）对日常生活经历进行密集重复评估，并在较长时间间隔内在宏观层面测量疾病相关因素，这两种方法的结合被认为是精神障碍动态建模的一种重要创新方法。然而，在这种情况下，各自的测量突发设计至今尚未应用于精神障碍疾病过程的建模特征。在本项目中，这样的设计将在对复发性抑郁发作的个体（n=60）进行为期五年的纵向随访的背景下实现，这些个体在之前的研究中已经经历了两次AA发作。因此，计划中的项目旨在提供重要的见解，以了解在不同时间尺度上测量的情感、认知和心理内分泌状态和过程（aa表型）及其决定因素的稳定性和变化，并将分析在疾病过程中短期和长期变化与个体差异之间的关系。相反，我们也将在宏观水平上研究各自的aa表型作为疾病临床病程预测因子的作用（子研究1）。此外，日常生活中的心理和生理过程与执行认知控制和静息状态下的自发思维的相互作用，在标准化的实验室会议中得到评估，在精神障碍研究中越来越重要。本项目旨在研究在实验室中评估的a)执行控制过程（更新、抑制、转移）和b)静息状态下自发思维与复发性抑郁症患者（n=60）和健康对照组（n=60）日常生活中瞬间认知（走神、反刍）、情感和心理内分泌（皮质醇输出）过程的关联。最后，我们的目标是确定特定的认知中介途径（瞬间认知过程），有助于解释实验室中执行控制和自发思维维度与日常生活情绪和皮质醇输出之间的关联（子研究2）。这两个子研究通过子研究1的burst 3相互连接。

The combination of intensive repeated assessments of daily life experiences at the micro-level (bursts) using Ambulatory Assessment (AA) and illness-related factors measured at the macro-level over longer term intervals is recently being regarded as an important innovative approach for dynamic modelling of mental disorders. In this context, however, respective measurement burst designs have not been applied to date for modelling characteristics of the course of illness in mental disorders. In the present project, such a design will be realized in the context of a five-year longitudinal follow-up burst of individuals with recurrent depressive episodes (n=60), who already underwent two AA bursts during a previous study. Thereby, the planned project aims to provide important insight into the stability and change of affective, cognitive, and psychoendocrinological states and processes at the micro-level (AA-phenotypes) and their determinants, measured on different time scales, and will analyse relationships between short- and longer term changes and individual differences therein in the course of illness. Conversely, we will also investigate the role of respective AA-phenotypes as predictors of the clinical course of illness at the macro-level (substudy 1).Furthermore, the interplay of mental and physiological processes during daily life with executive cognitive control and with spontaneous thought during the resting state, both assessed during standardized lab sessions, are increasingly gaining importance in the study of mental disorders. The present project aims to investigate associations of dimensions a) of executive control processes (updating, inhibiting, shifting), and b) of spontaneous thought during the resting state, assessed in the lab, with momentary cognitive (mind wandering, rumination), affective, and psychoendocrinological (cortisol output) processes during daily life in patients with recurrent depression (n=60) and healthy controls (n=60). Finally, we aim at identifying specific cognitive mediation pathways (momentary cognitive processes) contributing to the explanation of the association between dimensions of executive control and spontaneous thought in the lab with daily life mood and cortisol output (substudy 2). The two substudies are interlinked by burst 3 for substudy 1.