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Abnormal cognitive control in major depression as a result of decreased proactive but increased reactive effects during conflict processing

Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt1*, Rudi De Raedt1 and Gilles Pourtois1
  • 1 Ghent University, Belgium

According to the Dual Mechanisms of Control framework (Braver, Gray, & Burgess, 2007), cognitive control consists of two interacting components: proactive control refers to anticipatory resources (based on contextual information) that fuel reactive control, which is a correction mechanism that is activated when a conflict is identified. The aim of the present study is to identify whether a diminished inhibitory control in response to a negative stimulus in major depressed patients (MDD) stem from a breakdown in proactive control, and/or anomalies in reactive cognitive control and/or both. To address this question, behavioral performance and electrophysiological effects were compared during the Cued Emotional Conflict Task (see figure 1). Nineteen ambulatory patients meeting the DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD) and nineteen matched never depressed volunteers (ND) were tested in a laboratory setting. An advanced ERP topographic mapping analysis, combined with a standard distributed source localization method, was used to analyze the electrophysioloigical data. MDD demonstrated a selective slowing down of response latencies when actively inhibiting a dominant response to a sad face. This condition was associated with a longer duration of a dominant topography (800-900 ms post-stimulus onset) and medial prefrontal activity, reflecting the need of enhanced reactive control when encountering a negative stimulus associated with an incompatible stimulus-response mapping (see figure 2-4). Moreover, MDD patients failed to exert proactive cognitive control when preparing for an opposite stimulus-response mapping (abnormal modulation of the Cued Negativity Variation component), accompanied by more activity in brain regions belonging to the default mode network (see figure 5-7). All together, these new results show that the observed inhibitory deficit for negative information in MDD found at the behavioral level might originate from a combination of abnormal (decreased) proactive as well as (increased) reactive control mechanisms. MDD patients seem to engage exagerately in internal processing instead of sharpening their processing resources during the fore period. Presumably, this inefficient use of proactive processing resources might eventually lead to the need of enhanced reactive control when encountering a negative stimulus that causes interference.

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Acknowledgements

MAV (FWO08/PDO/168) is a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). Preparation of this paper was also supported by Grant BOF10/GOA/014 for a Concerted Research Action of Ghent University (awarded to RDR). GP is supported by grants from the European Research Council (Starting Grant #200758) and Ghent University (BOF Grant #05Z01708) (GP).

References

Braver, T.S., Gray, J.R., Burgess, G.C. (2007). Explaining the many varieties of working memory variation: Dual mechanisms of cognitive control. In Conway, A., Jarrold, C., Kane, M., Miyake, A., Towse, J. (Eds.) Variation in Working Memory. (pp. 76-106). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Keywords: Major Depressive Disorder, Dual Mechanisms of Control framework, reactive control, proactive control, sLORETA source localization

Conference: Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Higher Brain Functions in health and disease: cognition and memory

Citation: Vanderhasselt M, De Raedt R and Pourtois G (2012). Abnormal cognitive control in major depression as a result of decreased proactive but increased reactive effects during conflict processing. Conference Abstract: Belgian Brain Council. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00038

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Received: 05 Sep 2012; Published Online: 12 Sep 2012.

* Correspondence: Dr. Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, MarieAnne.Vanderhasselt@ugent.be