Neural and behavioral correlates of negative self‐focused thought associated with depression

Abstract

A central feature of major depression (MDD) is heightened negative self-focused thought (negative-SFT). Neuroscientific research has identified abnormalities in a network of brain regions in MDD, including brain areas associated with SFT such as medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). To our knowledge no studies have investigated the behavioral and neural correlates of negative-SFT using a sentence completion task in a sample of individuals with varying depression histories and severities. We test the following hypotheses: (1) negative-SFT will be associated with depression; and (2) depression and negative-SFT will be related to resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) for brain regions implicated in SFT. Seventy-nine women with varying depression histories and severities completed a sentence completion task and underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). Standard seed-based voxelwise rsFC was conducted for self-network regions of interest: dorsomedial PFC (dmPFC) and pregenual ACC (pgACC). We performed linear regression analyses to examine the relationships among depression, negative-SFT, and rsFC for the dmPFC and pgACC. Greater negative-SFT was associated with depression history and severity. Greater negative-SFT predicted increased rsFC between dmPFC and pgACC seeds and dorsolateral prefrontal (dlPFC) and parietal regions; depression group was also associated with increased pgACC-dlPFC connectivity. These findings are consistent with previous literature reporting elevated negative-SFT thought in MDD. Our rs-fMRI results provide novel support linking negative-SFT with increased rsFC between self-network and frontoparietal network regions across different levels of depression. Broadly, these findings highlight a dimension of social-affective functioning that may underlie MDD and other psychiatric conditions.

Impact Statement Coding of Self‐Related Thought in Women With Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

“…Impact statements were coded using a qualitative approach to assess self‐related and negative self‐related thought. Each sentence within each impact statement was coded based on focus, including self‐related and other‐related (as in Exner, ; Philippi et al., ). Self‐related responses referred to the self, with little regard for other persons, whereas other‐related responses discussed the characteristics, mental states, or actions of other people.…”

“…Final scores corresponded to the sum of all responses for each response category out of the total number of sentences in the impact statement. To examine negative self‐related thought, each sentence was also coded for overall valence (positive, negative, or neutral), which resulted in three relevant focus‐by‐valence categories (self‐positive, self‐negative, self‐neutral, as in Ingram & Smith, ; Philippi et al., ).…”

Connectome-wide search for functional connectivity locus associated with pathological rumination as a target for real-time fMRI neurofeedback intervention

“…Restingstate FC between the MPFC seed and the left inferior parietal lobule was also positively correlated with the severity of negative self-focused thought (Philippi et al, 2018). Positive correlation with negative self-focused thought was also seen for pregenual ACC seed connectivity with the dorsolateral PFC, the precuneus, the inferior parietal cortex, and the paracentral lobule extending to SMA (Philippi et al, 2018). Resting-state FC for the subgenual ACC with the right middle and inferior frontal gyrus was negatively correlated with RRS (Connolly et al, 2013).…”

“…Resting-state FC between the dorsal MPFC seed and the temporal pole was positively correlated with depressive 22 rumination for first-episode treatment-naïve young adults with MDD (Zhu et al, 2017). Restingstate FC between the MPFC seed and the left inferior parietal lobule was also positively correlated with the severity of negative self-focused thought (Philippi et al, 2018). Positive correlation with negative self-focused thought was also seen for pregenual ACC seed connectivity with the dorsolateral PFC, the precuneus, the inferior parietal cortex, and the paracentral lobule extending to SMA (Philippi et al, 2018).…”

“…Specifically, two core parts of the structure, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus (PCC/Prec) regions have been implicated in self-referential processing as well as pathological rumination due to their abnormal activity (Cooney et al, 2010;Nejad et al, 2019;Renner et al, 2015) and altered functional connectivity (Berman et al, 2014;Cheng et al, 2018;Connolly et al, 2013;Davey et al, 2017;Kuhn et al, 2012;Philippi et al, 2018;Yuan et al, 2018).…”