Abstract
Depressed populations demonstrate a greater tendency to have negative interpretations on ambiguous situations. Cognitive theories concerning depression proposed that such a negative bias plays an important role in developing and maintaining depression. There is now fairly consistent evidence arising from different stimuli and assessment methods that depression is featured by such a bias. The current study aimed to explore the neural signatures associated with the interpretation bias in the elderly with depressive symptoms confronted with different facial expressions using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Participants were 14 community-dwelling older adults with depressive symptoms assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale scores. We collected event-related potentials of their brain compared to that of 14 healthy aged-matched adults. The late positive potential (LPP) was used to examine cognitive-affective processes associated with judgment of emotional facial expressions between the two groups. Old adults with depressive symptoms have much smaller amplitude than healthy older adults irrespective of the prime types. When processing the targets, the two groups showed different patterns regarding the LPP. The healthy control group revealed no differences between ambiguous and happy primes, irrespective of whether the targets were sad or happy facial expressions. However, significant differences were found between happy and sad and between ambiguous and sad primes. Such a pattern indicates a positive bias in healthy elderly adults. Regarding the elderly with depressive symptoms, there were no significant differences between ambiguous versus happy, ambiguous versus sad primes, and happy versus sad primes. Concerning reaction times, there was no group difference. Thus, the findings provide some support for cognitive theories of depression. The current study shows that there is an association between interpretative biases and depressive symptoms in the elderly by using the neuroscientific method of ERPs. The results suggest that ERPs are sensitive to explore the interpretation bias in depressed populations.
Highlights
The predominant symptoms of depression include negative beliefs about the world, the self, the future, as well as periodical and unmanageable negative thoughts which frequently linger around the self
Results of the current study demonstrated that elderly adults with depressive symptoms have much smaller amplitude than healthy older adults irrespective of the prime types
Regarding the elderly with depressive symptoms, there were no significant differences between ambiguous versus happy, ambiguous versus sad primes, and happy versus sad primes
Summary
The predominant symptoms of depression include negative beliefs about the world, the self, the future, as well as periodical and unmanageable negative thoughts which frequently linger around the self. Cognitive theories of depression proposed that depressed populations show a greater tendency to have negative interpretations on ambiguous stimuli, situations, and events [1]. Previous studies have employed various methods to explore this issue, the most prevalent being self-reports of subjects’ interpretations of scenarios and stories with ambiguity [3,4,5]. Such methods substantially contributed to the establishment of cognitive theories of depression. Cognitive theories concerning depression proposed that such a negative bias plays an important role in developing and maintaining depression. The current study aimed to explore the neural signatures associated with the interpretation bias in the elderly with depressive symptoms confronted with different facial expressions using event-related brain potentials (ERPs)
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