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Associations between implicit and explicit affective inhibitory control, trait rumination and depressive symptoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2022

M. Nahum ,
T. Van Vleet ,
J. Jordan ,
O. Shimony  and
O. Bonne
M. Nahum*
Affiliation:
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School Of Occupational Therapy, Jerusalem, Israel
T. Van Vleet
Affiliation:
Posit Science Corp., R&d, San Francisco, United States of America
J. Jordan
Affiliation:
Dominican University of California, Department Of Psychology, San Rafael, United States of America
O. Shimony
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, School Of Ot, Jerusalem, Israel
O. Bonne
Affiliation:
Hadassah Medical Center, Department Of Psychiatry, Jerusalem, Israel
*
*Corresponding author.

Abstract

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Introduction

Inhibitory control is the executive function component which underlies one’s ability to maintain goal-directed behavior by inhibiting prepotent responses or ignoring irrelevant information. Recent models suggest that impaired inhibition of negative information may contribute to depressive symptoms, and that this association is mediated by rumination. However, the exact nature of this association, particularly in non-clinical samples, is unclear.

Objectives

The goal of the current study was to assess the relationship between inhibitory control over emotional vs. non-emotional information, rumination and depressive symptoms.

Methods

A non-clinical sample of 119 participants (mean age: 36.44 ± 11.74) with various levels of depressive symptoms completed three variations of a Go/No-Go task online; two of the task variations required either explicit or implicit processing of emotional expressions, and a third variation contained no emotional expressions (i.e., neutral condition).

Results

We found that for participants who reported elevated depressive symptoms, their inhibitory control ability was reduced for all three task variations, relative to less depressed participants. However, for the task variation that required implicit emotion processing (rather than explicit), depressive symptoms were associated with inhibitory deficits for sad and neutral, but not for happy facial expressions. An exploratory analysis showed that the relationship between inhibition and depressive symptoms occurs in part through trait rumination for all three tasks, regardless of emotional content.

Conclusions

Collectively, these results indicate that elevated depressive symptoms are associated with both a general inhibitory control deficit, as well as affective interference from negative emotions, with implications for the assessment and treatment of mood disorders.

Disclosure

No significant relationships.

Keywords

DepressioninhibitionruminationExecutive function
Type
Abstract
Information
European Psychiatry , Volume 65 , Special Issue S1: Abstracts of the 30th European Congress of Psychiatry , June 2022 , pp. S557 - S558
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Psychiatric Association
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