Affective reactivity in clinical depression [Elektronische Ressource] : development of an experimental paradigm / vorgelegt von Katrin R. Scharpf

Sujets

• Psychologie
• Gesundheit

Informations

• Publié par: ernst-moritz-arndt-universitat_greifswald
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 11
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Affective Reactivity in Clinical Depression:
Development of an Experimental Paradigm
Der Philosophischen Fakultät
der Ernst Moritz Arndt
Universität Greifswald
eingereichte
DISSERTATION
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Dr. phil.
vorgelegt
von Katrin R. Scharpf
geboren am 10. Juli 1979 in FreiburgDekan:
Professor Dr. Matthias Schneider
Gutachter:
Professor Dr. A. Hamm
Professor Dr. M. Lotze
Tag der Dispuation: 29.10.2008Acknowledgments
I want to thank
Katharina and Thomas for the good companionship
Heino for the technical support
Susan for the agency of the patients
Julia for the introduction and support with the fMRI project
the rest of the gang for a working atmosphere in friendship and cooperativeness
and last but not least all participants without them, this thesis would not exist.Contents
1 Introduction 3
2 Background 7
2.1 Depressive Disorders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.1 Diagnosis and Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1.2 Epidemiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Affective Disturbances in Clinical Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.1 Negative Potentiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.2 Positive Attenuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.3 Emotion Context Insensitivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 Experimental Methods of Affect Induction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.1 Stimulus Modality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.3.2 Stimulus Duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.3.3 Affect Induction in Clinical Depression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 Research Questions 25
4 Experiments 29
4.1 Peripheral Physiology - Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
4.1.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
4.1.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.1.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2 BOLD-Activity - Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.2.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4.3 Peripheral Physiology - Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
viiviii CONTENTS
4.3.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3.2 Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
4.3.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
4.3.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.4 BOLD-Activity - Patients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.4.2 Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.4.3 Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
4.4.4 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
5 General discussion 95
References 105
List of Figures 123
List of Tables 125CONTENTS 1
Abstract
A paradigm was developed to experimentally investigate the dysregulation of affective
reactivity in clinical depression. The literature so far reported evidence for three direc-
tions of dysregulation - negative potentiation, positive attenuation, and emotion context
insensitivity. Therefore a paradigm was designed to allow to test all three hypotheses si-
multaneously. Furthermore, to enable generalization across the specific stimuli used in the
experiment, stimuli of two sensory modalities were used - pictures and sounds. Because it
was hypothesized, that the specificity of affective reactivity of depressed patients will be es-
pecially prominent in long lasting affective situations, a categorically blocked presentation
mode was chosen. Regarding the dependent variables, a multimethod approach was con-
ducted. Besides self-report ratings of the feeling state, startle responses, skin conductance
responses, heart rate, and the electromyogram of the corrugator and zygomatic muscle were
recorded. In a separate session, BOLD-responses during picture viewing were collected by
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both sessions were conducted with three
samples: a healthy student sample, a depressed outpatient sample, and a healthy age and
gender matched control sample. The results of the patient sample support an integration
of the emotion context insensitivity and the negative potentiation hypothesis. Patients re-
ported generally to feel more unpleasant and more aroused than healthy controls. Skin
conductance and startle responses were modulated by valence to a smaller degree in the
patients than in the controls. No group differences were found in the facial muscle activity.
BOLD-responses were potentiated during unpleasant compared to neutral pictures in the
patient but not in the control group in the amygdala, the insular cortex and the orbito frontal
cortex. A model to integrate these results is developed. Its central assumption is, that the
inability to respond to affective stimuli is an aversive experience and therefore leads to a
negativity bias in attention and cognition. Direction of further research and implications for
psychotherapies are discussed.Chapter 1
Introduction
One way to understand the significance of a clinical condition is listening to descriptions of
people who suffer from this condition. One famous person affected by depression was the
16th US president Abraham Lincoln who expressed his feelings in a very illustrative way in
1841 (Comer, 2004):
I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed
to the whole human family, there would be not one cheerful face on earth.
As the citation shows, this must be a very unfortunate and devastating state. Other
patients often use words like down-hearted, hopeless, full of despair, loss of emotions,
without reactions to any event whether it is pleasant or unpleasant. This loss of emotions
should be illustrated with the words from another patient (James, 1884):
Surrounded by all that can render life happy and agreeable, still to me the fac-
ulty of enjoyment and of feeling is wanting - both have become physical impos-
sibilities. In everything, even in the most tender caresses of my children, I find
only bitterness. I cover them with kisses, but there is something between their
lips and mine; and this horrid something is between me and all the enjoyment
of life.[...] Each of my senses, each part of my proper self, is as it were sepa-
rated from me and can no longer afford me any feeling. .[...] Every function,
every action of my life remains, but deprived of the feeling that belongs to it,
of the enjoyment that should follow.
Although at the time when this article was written, the concept of major depressive
disorder (MDD) as it is used nowadays, was not defined, it is reasonable to assume that
34 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
today this patient would be diagnosed with major depression. Furthermore, this quotation
points to an aspect which is of central importance for this thesis - the bodily reactions
occurring when experiencing emotions. In his very famous article ’What is an emotion?’
(from which the quotation above is taken from) (James, 1884) proposed, that we first have a
bodily reaction and then interpret this as a feeling (e.g., we feel sorry because we cry, angry
because we strike, afraid because we tremble,...) and that there will be no feeling without
bodily sensations:
What kind of an emotion of fear would be left, if the feelings neither of quick-
ened heart beats nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of weak-
ened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stirrings, were present, it is
quite impossible to think.
Thus, bodily reactions are essential components of emotions. According to Hamm,
Schupp, and Weike (2002) emotional states consist of 2 components: one which drives
physiological reactions and one which concerns the subjective experience of the feeling
state. They assume that the physiological changes in emotional states serve an action-
preparatory aim. One can imagine, that in states of disturbed emotions, the motivation
to action is already changed. This can be seen in depression as well.
Depressed patients often describe themselves as being emotionless. The quotation of
James‘ patient cited above illustrates the misery of this (non)emotional state, which seems
hard to understand from a third person perspective. Maybe because of these nonemotional
states, depressed patients often describe their disorder as not comparable to any other suf-
fering (Berger, 1999).
Measuring the bodily reactions of these patients in situations when healthy people nor-
mally experience feelings may therefore help to objectify their state and improve our under-
standing of the di