title: Deployment of attention in clinical depression during symptom remission.
abstract: The purpose of the current study was to investigate deployment of attention in clinically depressed patients during the process of symptom remission. Previous research indicates a non-depressed protective bias in attention whereas depressed individuals evidence no bias. A deployment-of-attention task based on negative, positive, and neutral adjectives was administered twice to 15 inpatients with major depression and 15 normal controls, at about 6 weeks apart. From test 1 to test 2, severity of patients' depressive symptoms improved significantly. Acutely depressed patients tended to show an attentional bias towards negative information whereas partially remitted patients manifested no attentional bias. Non-depressed individuals attended less to negative information than (acutely and partially remitted) depressed patients. Non-depressed participants but not depressed patients avoid negative information demonstrating a protective processing bias. Depressed patients are not characterized by a shift towards a pronounced protective pattern during symptom remission.
authors.affiliation: University of Münster, Münster, Germany.
authors.forename: Stanislava Petkova
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Karparova
authors.forename: Anette
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kersting
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Suslow
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D005145:Face; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012074:Remission Induction; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014825:Vocabulary