Affective Biases in Humans and Animals

Abstract

Depression is one of the most common but poorly understood psychiatric conditions. Although drug treatments and psychological therapies are effective in some patients, many do not achieve full remission and some patients receive no apparent benefit. Developing new improved treatments requires a better understanding of the aetiology of symptoms and evaluation of novel therapeutic targets in pre-clinical studies. Recent developments in our understanding of the basic cognitive processes that may contribute to the development of depression and its treatment offer new opportunities for both clinical and pre-clinical research. This chapter discusses the clinical evidence supporting a cognitive neuropsychological model of depression and antidepressant efficacy, and how this information may be usefully translated to pre-clinical investigation. Studies using neuropsychological tests in depressed patients and at risk populations have revealed basic negative emotional biases and disrupted reward and punishment processing, which may also impact on non-affective cognition. These affective biases are sensitive to antidepressant treatments with early onset effects observed, suggesting an important role in recovery. This clinical work into affective biases has also facilitated back-translation to animals and the development of assays to study affective biases in rodents. These animal studies suggest that, similar to humans, rodents in putative negative affective states exhibit negative affective biases on decision-making and memory tasks. Antidepressant treatments also induce positive biases in these rodent tasks, supporting the translational validity of this approach. Although still in the early stages of development and validation, affective biases in depression have the potential to offer new insights into the clinical condition, as well as facilitating the development of more translational approaches for pre-clinical studies.

Using the affective bias test to predict drug‐induced negative affect: implications for drug safety

“…Recently, studies suggest that drugs such as tetrabenazine and varenicline may exacerbate depressive symptoms in patients with a pre‐existing psychiatric illness (Kenney et al, ; Thomas et al, ). Considering the hypothesis that negative affective biases play a key role in the development of persistent negative mood states (Harmer et al, ; Robinson and Roiser, ), it is plausible that an increased sensitivity to negative affective bias may underlie individual vulnerability to drug‐induced depression.…”

Cognitive neuropsychological theory of antidepressant action: a modern-day approach to depression and its treatment

“…Negative bias in emotional processing seen in depression has been reliably demonstrated across domains of emotional cognitive processing, including perception, attention, memory, and reward (Roiser et al 2012, Roiser and Sahakian 2013, Robinson and Roiser 2016. For example, people with depression are more likely to perceive and categorize ambiguous facial expressions as negative in the Facial Emotions Recognition Test (FERT); they show preferential memory for negative emotional information in emotional word-based memory encoding (ECAT) and immediate and delayed recall (EREC) tasks; take longer to name the colour of negative emotional words in the emotional Stroop task (i.e.…”

Association between heart rhythm and cortical sound processing

“…The findings reported here provide important information for comprehension of cognition, as evidence is presented for a role for the ANS in cortical auditory processing, which is relevant for communication and social behavior [1,2]. In this study, mechanisms of cortical auditory processing were revealed to be associated with the parasympathetic control of HR and sympathovagal balance.…”

“…To provide details regarding the relationship between central auditory processing and the ANS, this study investigated the association between CAEP components and resting time and frequency domain indices of HRV. The following outcomes are highlighted: (1) There was significant association of the vagal component of HR control and sympathovagal balance at rest with the N2 and P2 waves; (2) This association only occurred in the left ear, indicating involvement of the right cortical hemisphere; and (3) The hypothesis is proposed that the autonomic component of heart rhythm interacts with cortical sound processing.…”

“…Conscious understanding of sound is necessary for communication and development of cognitive abilities [1] and our cognitive system provides the most important distinguishing characteristic for humans and other mammals [2].…”