Neural and Behavioral Aspects of Information-Processing Biases in Depression

描述（由申请人提供）：抑郁症是所有精神疾病中最普遍的。因此，至关重要的是，我们要确定与抑郁症维持有关的因素和阻碍从这种疾病中恢复的因素。在一系列的行为调查中，我们发现抑郁的个体只有在长时间的刺激暴露时间允许对材料进行细化时，才会表现出对负面刺激的偏向性注意处理。虽然我们也发现抑郁症患者对积极刺激的处理能力受损，但我们一致证明，积极刺激的生理反应和神经激活更强，预示着抑郁症患者在接下来的一年里功能的改善。整合这些结果的工作使我们扩大和完善了抑郁症的认知理论，包括对以下因素的考虑：(a)未能脱离负面刺激；(b)影响工作记忆的抑制性功能障碍；(c)情绪性材料的长期记忆；(d)对积极刺激的反应；(e)对情绪刺激和消极情绪调节的神经激活模式。通过关注这些结构，我们对认知和生物功能障碍如何导致情绪失调和持续的负面影响（抑郁症的标志性症状）有了更全面的了解。我们提出了一系列的研究，旨在测试抑郁症的综合配方，其中我们假设处理消极和积极刺激的不同角色。我们认为，抑郁症患者很难从负面刺激中脱离出来，并抑制对负面刺激的精心处理。我们进一步假设，这种抑制困难增加了反刍的可能性，而反刍反过来又导致持续的负面影响。此外，抑郁个体对积极刺激的处理减弱削弱了他们使用积极记忆或信息来修复这些消极情感状态的能力。事实上，我们认为那些能够最强烈地参与积极刺激的抑郁个体将最快地从抑郁中恢复过来。最后，我们提出了一系列旨在阐明与这些过程相关的神经激活模式的研究。这些研究的发现将为抑郁症综合心理生物学理论的持续发展做出重要贡献。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Depression is among the most prevalent of all psychiatric disorders. It is critical, therefore, that we identify factors involved in the maintenance of depression and factors that impede recovery from this disorder. In a series of behavioral investigations we found depressed individuals to demonstrate biased attentional processing of negative stimuli only in response to prolonged stimulus exposure durations that permit elaboration of the material. Although we also found depressed individuals to exhibit impaired processing of positive stimuli, we demonstrated consistently that greater physiological reactivity and neural activation in response to positive stimuli predicts improved functioning of depressed individuals over the following year. Working to integrate these results has led us to both broaden and refine cognitive theories of depression to include a consideration of the roles of: (a) failure to disengage from negative stimuli; (b) inhibitory dysfunction affecting working memory; (c) long-term memory for emotional material; (d) responsivity to positive stimuli; and (e) patterns of neural activation in response to emotional stimuli and in the regulation of negative affect. In focusing on these constructs, we are gaining a more comprehensive understanding of precisely how cognitive and biological dysfunction can lead to emotional dysregulation and sustained negative affect, hallmark symptoms of depression. We propose a series of studies designed to test an integrative formulation of depression in which we posit different roles for the processing of negative and positive stimuli. We propose that depressed persons experience difficulty disengaging from, and inhibiting elaborative processing of, negative stimuli. We posit further that this inhibitory difficulty increases the likelihood of rumination, which in turn, leads to sustained negative affect. In addition, the attenuated processing by depressed individuals of positive stimuli impairs their ability to use positive memories or information to repair these negative affective states. Indeed, we posit that those depressed individuals who are able to engage most strongly with positive stimuli will recover from depression most quickly. Finally, we propose a series of investigations designed to elucidate the patterns of neural activation that are associated with each of these processes. Findings from these studies will represent important contributions to the continued development of an integrative psychobiological theory of depression.