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01-04-2007 | Original Article

Disentangling Attentional Biases and Attentional Deficits in Depression: An Event-Related Potential P300 Analysis

Authors: Stephen S. Ilardi, Ruth Ann Atchley, Aubrey Enloe, Kristin Kwasny, Genevieve Garratt

Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research | Issue 2/2007

Abstract

Electroencephalographic event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to investigate maladaptive attentional processes in depression. Specifically, we measured the ERP P300 component—a waveform that reflects the real-time allocation of attention to stimuli of high informational salience—as it was elicited by neutral and negatively valent words among currently depressed, previously depressed, and never-depressed participants. The study design allowed us to clarify the degree to which the oft-reported attenuation of P300 response in depression should be regarded as evidence of: (a) a general, pervasive impairment in depressive attentional function; or (b) the operation of depressotypic attentional biases, which may give rise to attentional deficits only regarding stimuli of non-negative emotional valence. Consistent with the latter possibility, depressed individuals were observed in this study to experience, on average, a robust P300 response to negatively valent target words—a response of larger magnitude than that observed among previously depressed and never-depressed controls. This enhanced P300 response to negative stimuli in depression appears to be a statelike, rather than traitlike, phenomenon.

The latency of onset for the P300 component is actually somewhat variable across a temporal window ranging from 300–500 ms post-stimulus presentation, and it is in part dependent on the time necessary for stimulus identification and classification (i.e. the time it takes to identify a stimulus as salient). The more cognitively demanding the stimulus identification task, the later the onset of the P300 component.

The screening session, which lasted approximately 45 min and typically included 10–15 brief measures used by various investigators in the university’s Department of Psychology, served as a precursor to possible contact by investigators for follow-up study participation. All introductory psychology students were required to participate in a total of 5 h of research, for which the screening session fulfilled one hour of research credit.

Although the mean BDI score for the depressed group (18.3) is generally interpreted as indicative of “moderate depression” (e.g., Beck et al., 1961), it is noteworthy that the mean BDI for this group at the time of the initial screening was 27.6 (indicative of more severe depression). Thus, these depressed participants appear to have experienced, on average, a moderate reduction in depressive symptoms between the screening session and their subsequent completion several days later of the full study protocol (including the SCID, BDI retest, and ERP assessment). However, it is important to note that all such participants still met full DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder at the time of the SCID assessment. Finally, we note that there were no substantive changes in mean BDI score from screening to full protocol completion for either the previously depressed or never depressed groups.

The P300, as with most ERP components, is in part defined by the spatial distribution of the electrical signal as it is measured at established electrode locations on the scalp. Previous research has clearly determined that the P300’s peak amplitude is most commonly measured at midline, or centrally located, posterior electrode cites (i.e. scalp locations over the parietal lobe). It is important to note, however, that the established scalp distribution of the component should not be taken as evidence regarding the underlying cortical source of this ERP signal. Instead, the scalp distribution of the waveform is taken as further evidence that that observed component is the same signal across oddball experiments, in much the same way that the polarity and component latency help identify an ERP component.

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Title: Disentangling Attentional Biases and Attentional Deficits in Depression: An Event-Related Potential P300 Analysis
Authors: Stephen S. Ilardi
Ruth Ann Atchley
Aubrey Enloe
Kristin Kwasny
Genevieve Garratt
Publication date: 01-04-2007
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers
Published in: Cognitive Therapy and Research / Issue 2/2007
Print ISSN: 0147-5916
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2819
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-006-9113-y

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Disentangling Attentional Biases and Attentional Deficits in Depression: An Event-Related Potential P300 Analysis

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