Rethinking the risk for depression using the RDoC: A psychophysiological perspective

Familial risk for depression is associated with reduced physical activity in young adults: evidence from a wrist-worn actigraphy study

Depression is characterized by reduced physical activity and sleep-wake cycle disturbances, often considered important features of the disease. While a few studies have suggested that self-reported reduced physical activity and sleep-wake cycle disturbances might both be linked to depression vulnerability, actigraphy-based measures in vulnerable samples remain largely unexplored. This study relied on actigraphy-based parameters to test whether these disturbances characterize depression vulnerability. Seven-day actigraphy data were collected from 20 (13 female) university students with a high vulnerability to depression, which was determined by the presence of a family history of the condition but no current symptoms, and 32 (21 female) controls with neither a family history of depression nor current depressive symptoms. Daily physical activity, namely gross motor activity, was quantified as average daily acceleration and time spent engaging in moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). The sleep-wake cycle and circadian rhythms were assessed as total sleep duration per night (in hours), sleep within sleep period time (in hours), sleep efficiency (%), and relative amplitude (i.e., the difference between the activity during the day and the night, which reflects circadian rhythms amplitude). Results showed that individuals with a familial risk for depression exhibited reduced daily acceleration and time spent in MVPA relative to the control group, particularly on the weekend during their free time away from scheduled activities. On the other hand, the two groups were comparable in terms of sleep estimates. Taken together, reduced physical activity, but not sleep-wake disturbances, seem to be associated with vulnerability to depression and might be a viable target for identification and prevention efforts.

Affective processing in dysphoria: Evidence from startle probe modulation of ERPs

The hypoactivation of the appetitive and defensive motivational systems in the brain is a feature of depression and might also represent a vulnerability factor for the disorder. A measure that can be employed to investigate both motivational systems is the electroencephalographic response to an acoustic startle probe during affective processing. Particularly, the amplitude of auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) components to the startle probe is smaller when the emotional context is more arousing. Neural responses to an unattended startle probe during an emotional passive viewing task of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures was employed to assess the activation of the approach and defensive motivational systems in a sample of individuals with (n = 24, 23 females) vs. without (n = 24, 23 females) dysphoria. The group without dysphoria showed a reduced startle-elicited N200 only in the context of pleasant relative to neutral pictures, indicating that the affective processing of the appetitive context might reduce the attentional resources needed to orient attention toward unattended non-salient stimuli. Conversely, the N200 amplitude was not attenuated for pleasant relative to neutral and unpleasant contexts in the group with dysphoria. Moreover, no within- or between-group differences emerged in the P300 amplitude. Taken together, the results of this study showed that depression vulnerability is characterized by reduced attention to pleasant contexts, suggesting a blunted affective processing of appetitive emotional stimuli.

Latent profiles of regulatory flexibility in alcohol use disorder: Associations with delay discounting and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress

BACKGROUND

Regulatory flexibility (RF) involves three distinct components of self-regulation: context sensitivity, repertoire, and feedback responsiveness. Subgroups based on differences in RF have been identified in a general sample and are differentially associated with symptoms of anxiety and depression. However, potential RF profiles have not been examined in individuals with substance use disorders. This study examined RF subtypes in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) and their associations with psychosocial outcomes (i.e., depression, anxiety, and stress) and delay discounting (a core feature of addiction).

METHODS

Individuals (n = 200) with an Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test score of >16 (mean = 24.12 (±6.92)) were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (mean = 37.26 years old (±11.41); 94 (47%) women). Participants completed the Context Sensitivity Index, the Flexible Regulation of Emotional Expression Scale, and the Coping Flexibility Scale to assess RF. Participants also completed an Adjusting Amount Delay Discounting Task and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21). Latent profile analyses (LPA) were used to identify patterns in RF deficits. Kruskal-Wallis and Dunn's tests were performed to examine differences in discounting rates and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress across RF profiles.

RESULTS

The LPA revealed a 2-profile characterization, including (1) context sensitive regulators (CSR; n = 39) and (2) moderate flexibility regulators (MFR; n = 161). CSR demonstrated significantly lower symptoms of depression (p = 0.004), anxiety (p < 0.001), and stress (p < 0.001) than MFR. CSR also displayed significantly lower AUDIT scores (p = 0.031).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings illustrate that among individuals with moderate-severe AUD, those high in context sensitivity coupled with moderate abilities in repertoire and feedback responsiveness have fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Together, context sensitivity may be an important and protective component of RF among individuals with AUD.