title: The enduring effects of depressive thoughts on working memory.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Depressive thoughts are known to persist in persons with depressed mood leading to rumination and exacerbation of depressive symptoms. What has not yet been examined is whether this persistence of depressive thoughts can lead to impairment of working memory (WM).
  
  
  METHODS
  We assessed whether receiving a WM task featuring depressive cues could bias performance on a subsequent, non-depressive WM task for dysphoric individuals (DIs) compared to non-DIs.
  
  
  RESULTS
  DIs showed significantly attenuated performance on the WM task with depressive cues compared to non-DIs. Further, when DIs were given the WM task with depressive cues first, they showed deficits on a second WM task without depressive cues, compared to DIs given the non-depressive WM task first and non-DIs in either condition.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Unselected recruitment procedures did not permit balanced sample sizes in each group. Future research is needed to assess whether these results extend to a clinically depressed sample and whether WM deficits are the consequence of depressed mood, or a risk factor for the development and maintenance of depressed mood.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Results suggest that, for DIs, the influence of depressive cues on performance transfers to subsequent tasks in which these cues are no longer present. These results support the hypothesis that when depressive thoughts are part of depressed persons' conscious experience, cognitive deficits arise. Further, these results suggest an ecologically-relevant mechanism by which day-to-day cognitive deficits in depression can develop.
authors.affiliation: School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA. Electronic address: nicholas.hubbard@utdallas.edu.
authors.forename: Nicholas A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Hubbard
authors.affiliation: School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA; Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Joanna L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Hutchison
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
authors.forename: D Zachary
authors.initials: DZ
authors.lastname: Hambrick
authors.affiliation: School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA; Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA.
authors.forename: Bart
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rypma
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008569:Memory Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D012307:Risk Factors; D013850:Thinking