title: Inhibition and response to error in remitted major depression.
abstract: Depression is a common illness which tends to have a relapsing progression. Revealing vulnerability factors is an important step towards improved treatment and prevention. Previous studies of individuals in remission indicate that inhibitory control is more strongly impaired than other cognitive functions. Studies have mostly used Stroop tasks; it is unclear how this population performs on other measures of inhibition. Abnormal reactions to errors may also promote depression relapse, but this has rarely been studied in remitted depression. We used a Stop Signal task and Stroop inhibition task to investigate inhibitory function and post-error reaction time adjustments in 54 individuals with a history of depression and 185 never-depressed controls. Inhibitory processing was slower among the remitted depressed individuals on the Stop Signal task, but no difference was found in Stroop inhibition. The groups were not different on post-error adjustments. This finding extends the understanding of inhibitory deficiency in this population and offers insight into trait markers of depression.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway. Electronic address: martin.aker@psykologi.uio.no.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aker
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Ragnhild
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bø
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Harmer
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.
authors.forename: Tore C
authors.initials: TC
authors.lastname: Stiles
authors.affiliation: Clinical Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Nils Inge
authors.initials: NI
authors.lastname: Landrø
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D012008:Recurrence; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis
keywords: Depression relapse; Executive function; Response monitoring; Stop Signal task