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Specificity of cognitive biases in patients with current depression and remitted depression and in patients with asthma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

A. Fritzsche ,
B. Dahme ,
I. H. Gotlib ,
J. Joormann ,
H. Magnussen ,
H. Watz ,
D. O. Nutzinger  and
A. von Leupoldt
A. Fritzsche*
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
B. Dahme
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
I. H. Gotlib
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
J. Joormann
Affiliation:
University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
H. Magnussen
Affiliation:
Pulmonary Research Institute at Hospital Grosshansdorf, Centre for Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery, Grosshansdorf, Germany
H. Watz
Affiliation:
Pulmonary Research Institute at Hospital Grosshansdorf, Centre for Pneumology and Thoracic Surgery, Grosshansdorf, Germany
D. O. Nutzinger
Affiliation:
Psychosomatic Hospital, Bad Bramstedt, Germany University of Lübeck, Lübeck, Germany
A. von Leupoldt
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
*
*Address for correspondence: A. Fritzsche, University of Hamburg, Department of Psychology, Von-Melle-Park 5, 20146 Hamburg, Germany. (Email: anja.fritzsche@uni-hamburg.de)
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Abstract

Background

Previous studies have demonstrated a specific cognitive bias for sad stimuli in currently depressed patients; little is known, however, about whether this bias persists after recovery from the depressive episode. Depression is frequently observed in patients with asthma and is associated with a worse course of the disease. Given these high rates of co-morbidity, we could expect to observe a similar bias towards sad stimuli in patients with asthma.

Method

We therefore examined cognitive biases in memory and attention in 20 currently and 20 formerly depressed participants, 20 never-depressed patients diagnosed with asthma, and 20 healthy control participants. All participants completed three cognitive tasks: the self-referential encoding and incidental recall task, the emotion face dot-probe task and the emotional Stroop task.

Results

Compared with healthy participants, currently and formerly depressed participants, but not patients with asthma, exhibited specific biases for sad stimuli.

Conclusions

These results suggest that cognitive biases are evident in depression even after recovery from an acute episode but are not found in never-depressed patients with asthma.

Keywords

Asthmadepressionemotioninformation processingremission
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 40 , Issue 5 , May 2010 , pp. 815 - 826
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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