title: Can negative self-schemes in depressives be altered through sleep deprivation?
abstract: This paper addresses the question whether negative cognitive style represents a state or trait variable of depressive patients. For this reason, it studies the influence of sleep deprivation on negative self-schemes of those patients. 10 patients suffering from DSM-III-R major depression were compared with 10 age- and sex-matched controls on a task for rating the self-descriptiveness of positive and negative adjectives as well as a subsequent word recognition task. Three sessions were involved: an initial session (baseline), the second following a night of sleep deprivation, and the third after a successive full night's sleep. During the baseline examination, depressives showed a relatively negative cognitive bias; that is, the same number of positive and negative self-scheme elements. In comparison to controls, they showed significantly more negative and significantly less positive self-scheme elements. The same pattern emerged in a word recognition task for the number of recognized self-scheme elements. These variables indicated no change in the depressive group following sleep deprivation. Depressive subjects' reaction times on self-descriptiveness rating were significantly longer for positive than for negative self-scheme elements at the baseline session. The opposite was true for controls. Here, a sleep deprivation effect was evident. There was no longer a difference in the speed of information processing for positive as compared to negative self-scheme elements. This applied to both depressive and control groups.
authors.affiliation: Psychiatric Hospital, Albert-Ludwig University, Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Baving
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Maes
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bohus
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lis
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Krieger
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Olbrich
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Berger
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011599:Psychopathology; D011930:Reaction Time; D012649:Self Concept; D012892:Sleep Deprivation