Introduction

Late-Life Depression (LLD) is characterized by deficits in cognitive control. We investigated the effect of LLD on a subset of cognitive control functions, the Cognitive Action Control (CAC), distinguishing on-line and adaptive control.

Methods

We compared LLD subjects (n = 31) and Healthy Controls (HC, n = 31) on their performance in a Simon task. The online congruency effect and adaptive effect were compared for reaction times (RT) and accuracy rates between the groups using mixed models. We applied distributional analyses of RT to differentiate the strength of impulsive action selection and the proficiency of selective action suppression. Finally, we measured correlations between the performances on the task and clinical scores of the LLD group.

Results

LLD had increased error rates in congruent trials compared to HC. Conversely, the adaptive CAC was equivalent between the groups. Distributional analyses showed that the fastest actions were less led by pertinent information in LLD. This phenomenon was found exclusively for congruent trials preceded by non-congruent trials. On the other hand, LLD patients, when they take time, were better than HC to suppress selectively non-relevant information. No difference was observed for adaptation to the preceding condition. No association between behavioral measurements and clinical scores were found.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that LLD participants have a specific cognitive disturbance of CAC, showing less facilitation than HC in congruent situations. We propose that this originates in a difficulty in LLD patients in disengaging their attention from conflict situations, which is consistent with a biased CAC to aversive stimuli in depression.

中文翻译：

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行为选择过程中晚年抑郁症的认知行为控制动态

介绍

晚年抑郁症 (LLD) 的特征是认知控制缺陷。我们研究了 LLD 对认知控制功能子集的影响，即认知行为控制 (CAC)，区分在线和自适应控制。

方法

我们比较了 LLD 受试者（n = 31）和健康对照（HC，n = 31）在西蒙任务中的表现。使用混合模型比较了组间反应时间 (RT) 和准确率的在线一致性效应和自适应效应。我们应用 RT 的分布分析来区分冲动动作选择的强度和选择动作抑制的熟练程度。最后，我们测量了 LLD 组的任务表现与临床分数之间的相关性。

结果

与 HC 相比，LLD 在全等试验中增加了错误率。相反，各组之间的自适应 CAC 是等效的。分布分析表明，最快的行动较少由 LLD 中的相关信息引导。这种现象仅在非一致试验之前的一致试验中发现。另一方面，LLD 患者，当他们花时间时，比 HC 更能选择性地抑制非相关信息。没有观察到对前述条件的适应有差异。未发现行为测量与临床评分之间存在关联。

结论

我们的结果表明，LLD 参与者对 CAC 有特定的认知障碍，在一致的情况下显示出比 HC 更少的促进作用。我们认为，这源于 LLD 患者难以将注意力从冲突情况中分离出来，这与 CAC 对抑郁症中的厌恶刺激有偏见是一致的。