L.A. Clark and D. Watson (1991) proposed a tripartite model that groups symptoms of depression and anxiety into 3 subtypes: symptoms of general distress that are largely nonspecific, manifestations of somatic tension and arousal that are relatively unique to anxiety, and symptoms of anhedonia and low Positive Affect that are specific to depression. This model was tested in 5 samples (3 student, 1 adult, and 1 patient sample) using the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (MASQ; D. Watson & L. A. Clark, 1991), which was designed to assess the hypothesized symptom groups, together with other symptom and cognition measures. Consistent with the tripartite model, the MASQ Anxious Arousal and Anhedonic Depression scales both differentiated anxiety and depression well and also showed excellent convergent validity. Thus, differentiation of these constructs can be improved by focusing on symptoms that are relatively unique to each.

(1991) proposed a tripartite model of depression and anxiety that divides symptoms into 3 groups: symptoms of general distress that are largely nonspecific, manifestations of anhedonia and low positive affect that are specific to depression, and symptoms of somatic arousal that are relatively unique to anxiety. This model was tested by conducting separate factor analyses of the 90 items in the Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire (D. Watson & L. A. Clark, 1991) in 5 samples (3 student, 1 adult, 1 patient). The same 3 factors (General Distress, Anhedonia vs. Positive Affect, Somatic Anxiety) emerged in each data set, suggesting that the symptom structure in this domain is highly convergent across diverse samples. Moreover, these factors broadly corresponded to the symptom groups proposed by the tripartite model. Inspection of the individual item loadings suggested some refinements to the model.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients with histories of cocaine and alcohol abuse (CA-PTSD) were compared with normal volunteers. Positron emission tomography (PET) scans with 15O-butanol were used to compare regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) between the groups during rest and during an auditory continuous performance task (ACPT). CA-PTSD patients had significantly higher rCBF in right amygdala and left parahippocampal gyrus than normals during the ACPT. Normals had higher rCBF at frontal cortex during the resting scan and during the ACPT. The role of the amygdala in attention and fear conditioning suggests that increased amygdala rCBF may be related to clinical features of PTSD. Cocaine use may be associated with increased amygdala rCBF in PTSD patients. Amygdala and frontal cortex attention system components may be reciprocally related and their relative contributions to processing of neutral stimuli perturbed in CA-PTSD.

No abstract

No abstract