Rumination in Early Adolescent Girls: An EEG Study of Cognitive Control and Emotional Responding in an Emotional Go/NoGo Task

Abstract

Although there is a substantial literature on rumination and depression, research examining neurocognitive processes related to rumination is just emerging, and few studies have examined such processes in relation to depression-risk in early adolescence. This study examined the associations between neurocognitive processes and trait-rumination in relation to familial risk for depression in nondepressed girls in early adolescence. Neurocognitive processes were assessed via EEG recording during an emotional Go/NoGo task, and analyses examined two Event-Related Potential components, including the Go and NoGo N2, reflecting attentional engagement and cognitive control processes respectively, and the Go and NoGo P3, reflecting motivated attention and inhibitory motor processes. In higher-risk youth, rumination was associated with specific alterations in both N2 and P3 amplitudes to nonemotional faces when required to enact a response, suggesting disrupted behavioral flexibility in adjusting responses to meet task demands. In lower-risk youth, however, greater rumination was associated with diminished engagement of top-down attention and cognitive control resources (i.e., attenuated N2 amplitudes), and enhanced activation of inhibitory motor control processes (i.e., enhanced P3 amplitudes). Results provide novel information regarding the association between depression-risk, rumination, and emotional processing in early adolescence that may have implications for risk-identification and prevention.

Semantic Inhibition is impaired in college students with depressive traits. EEG and pupillometric evidence with the Hayling’s task

“…Self-report measures correlate with N450 Self-reported rumination and anhedonia, two hallmark symptoms of depression [12,54], correlated with N450 in INHIB trials, suggesting that they are associated with semantic inhibition de cits. First, the di culty to suppress negative thoughts or ruminate in our participants with subclinical depression predicts alterations in neural processes of semantic inhibition, which is consistent with previous evidence that rumination correlates with ERPs inhibition-related signatures [9,25] and with activity of neural networks of inhibition [10]. Second, although anhedonia is generally attributed to dysfunction in the reward system of the brain, it has also been linked to altered executive functions in the prefrontal cortex [6], including an altered GABAergic system, responsible for inhibition [55].…”

“…Given the lack of EEG studies with HSCT with which to compare, we can rely on some similarity to other inhibition tasks. Thus, we hypothesize that INHIB trials, compared to INIT trials, will increase the ERP markers of cognitive con ict or inhibition similar to those found in NoGo trials of the GO/NOGO paradigm [24,25,9]. That is, enhanced N2 and/or P3, corresponding to selective attention and inhibitory control, respectively [32].…”

“…On the other hand, event-related potentials (ERPs) analyses have been widely employed to investigate the neural dynamics in depressed persons in inhibition-related tasks. For instance, studies with the Go/Nogo task showed that these patients have an altered modulation of P3 amplitude compared to controls in Nogo trials [24,25,9]. However, to our knowledge, no study recorded EEG during HSCT to explore the neural dynamics associated with semantic inhibition in depressed participants.…”

“…Anhedonia has been attributed to impairments in the reward network (e.g., nucleus accumbens), but also in the cognitive control networks in the prefrontal cortex [6,5]. On the other hand, rumination has been frequently associated with impairment in executive control and cognitive inhibition [7][8][9][10][11]. Moreover, rumination could be a speci c de cit in semantic inhibition processes [12,5] rather than a general executive functions de cit, as it involves di culties to suppress recurrent thoughts.…”

Altered brain activity related to inhibitory processing in youth with insomnia

“…The findings collectively suggested a link between psychopathology and altered neural processing underlying inhibitory control. In a previous study that measured ERP during an Emotional Go/NoGo Task, it was found that increased rumination, which is a robust cognitive risk factor for depression, was associated with specific alterations in both N2 and P3 amplitudes in response to non-emotional faces in girls of mothers with histories of depression(Connell, Danzo, Magee, & Dawson, 2020). It is possible that inhibitory control deficits might play a role in the cognitive processes linking to the risk of depression and anxiety in individuals with insomnia.…”