Comorbidity of Anxiety and Unipolar Mood Disorders

Abstract

Research on relationships between anxiety and depression has proceeded at a rapid pace since the 1980s. The similarities and differences between these two conditions, as well as many of the important features of the comorbidity of these disorders, are well understood. The genotypic structure of anxiety and depression is also fairly well documented. Generalized anxiety and major depression share a common genetic diathesis, but the anxiety disorders themselves are genetically hetergeneous. Sophisticated phenotypic models have also emerged, with data converging on an integrative hierarchical model of mood and anxiety disorders in which each individual syndrome contains both a common and a unique component. Finally, considerable progress has been made in understanding cognitive aspects of these disorders. This work has focused on both the cognitive content of anxiety and depression and on the effects that anxiety and depression have on information processing for mood-congruent material.

Positive and negative mood in the elderly: the ZENITH study

“…The other significant difference between centres concerned higher negative affect among the participants in the other older sample at Grenoble. High negative affect is a key component of depression, which is also characterised by low positive affect (Mineka et al, 1998). Neither the Rome nor the Grenoble samples indicate depression as a general trend, but each has evidence of lower psychological well-being than for the two younger samples.…”

Chronic Unpredictable Stress Induces a Cognitive Deficit and Anxiety-Like Behavior in Rats that is Prevented by Chronic Antidepressant Drug Treatment

“…Major depression and anxiety disorders are associated with functional and morphological alterations in the prefrontal cortex and limbic system, along with symptoms reflecting, among other things, both cognitive dysfunction and anxiety (Brown et al, 1998;Mineka et al, 1998). Clinical studies have shown that stressful life experiences are important etiological factors in the development and maintenance of depression and affective disorders (Kendler et al, 1995(Kendler et al, , 1998Kessler, 1997), particularly associated with cognitive and emotional biases (Beck, 1976;Beck et al, 1987;Coles and Heimberg, 2002;Mathews and Mackintosh, 1998).…”

“…This combined effect of a decrease in cognitive capability, in particular cognitive flexibility, together with a basal state of anxiety-like behavior induced by CUS is consistent with the changes in cognition and anxiety seen in major depressive disorder. Indeed, anxiety is a prominent component of depression, and anxiety disorders are frequently comorbid with major depression (Gorman, 1996(Gorman, /1997Mineka et al, 1998). Thus, understanding the mechanisms by which CUS induced both a cognitive deficit on the AST and anxiety-like Figure 6 Body weight gain over the course of CUS treatment and behavioral testing.…”

“…There is a high degree of comorbidity of depression and anxiety disorders, with symptomatology reflecting affective, somatic and cognitive dysregulation associated with both depression and anxiety (Mineka et al, 1998;Morilak and Frazer, 2004). However, although many pre-clinical studies attempting to model aspects of depression have focused on behaviors thought to represent anhedonia, reduced locomotor activity or behavioral despair (eg, Lu et al, 2006;Rygula et al, 2005;Willner, 1997;Willner and Mitchell, 2002), relatively few have attempted to model cognitive impairments or state anxiety associated with depression.…”

Psychopathy and negative emotionality: Analyses of suppressor effects reveal distinct relations with emotional distress, fearfulness, and anger-hostility.

“…Tellegen and Waller's conception of NEM includes the lower order trait constructs of stress reaction and aggression, which closely correspond to the emotional distress and anger facets of Buss and Plomin's & Neale, 2003;Krueger, 1999;Vollebergh et al, 2001). The tripartite model is another intensively researched and well-validated model designed to account for the comorbidity between depression and anxiety disorders (Brown, Chorpita, & Barlow, 1998;Clark & Watson, 1991;Mineka, Watson, & Clark, 1998). The model posits that a general dimension of negative affectivity accounts for the comorbidity between depression and anxiety disorders, whereas specific factors of low positive affect and autonomic hyperarousal account for the distinctive phenotypic expression of depression and anxiety disorders, respectively.…”