Electrodermal activity in antidepressant medicated and unmedicated depressive patients and in matched healthy subjects

Abstract

A group of 59 depressive in- and outpatients displayed statistically significantly subnormal electrodermal activity (EDA) according to the skin conductance level, the skin conductance response magnitude, the skin conductance response rate, and the index of nonresponding during neutral tone stimulation, compared to 59 mentally and somatically healthy subjects, individually matched for age and sex. Comparisons between 20 antidepressant medicated and 20 unmedicated patients, matched for age, and comparisons between 21 drug-free patients and 10 patients medicated exclusively with antidepressants yielded no statistically significant difference in any EDA variable. However, all the electrodermal central values were somewhat lower in the medicated patients, possibly an effect of greater severity of symptoms. The present and previous findings offer strong support to the hypothesis of a subnormal function of the electrodermal activity in groups of depressive patients.

Habituation and Sensitization Processes in Depressive Disorders

“…Thus, the lower SCL, OR and SCOR conductance amplitudes are, the larger the scores in BDI, STAI-E and STAI-R. Some authors have observed similar results [34,42], but other studies have not detected any correlation [26,38,43,44]. In the present research, the depressive sample displayed high scores in STAI which would be able to reflect elevated anxiety.…”

“…Nonetheless, lower basal conductance levels and lower conductance amplitudes were detected in depressive patients, even after 1 month free of antidepressive drugs [19,33,34]. Moreover, Iacono et al [24] and William et al [35] compared depressive patients with antidepressive treatment to those without, finding no significant differences.…”

Mindful attention regulation and non-judgmental orientation in depression: A multi-method approach

“…(Almost all patients were on antidepressants.) For example, there is evidence that antidepressants weaken SCRs (e.g., Thorell, Kjellman, & d'Elia, 1987). In addition, while the cognitive effects of antidepressants are still unclear, they might have had some effects on attentional processing or on other physiological responses.…”

Emotional Arousal in Temporal Lobectomy: Autonomic and Performance Effects of Success and Failure Feedback

“…Under these circumstances, the LTL reacts with depressive affect (Bear & Fedio, 1977) when the right hemisphere interprets the situation as presenting the possibility of failure. Just as in the case of depression, this reaction reduces the arousal response (Albus et al, 1987;Iacono et al, 1983;Thorell et al, 1987;Williams et al, 1985).…”

“…In fact, even temporary sodium amytal inactivation of the left hemisphere is associated with negative mood states (Christianson, Saisa, Garvill, & Silfvenius, 1993). Depressive affect is associated with reductions in electrodermal activity (Albus, Muller, Ackenheil, & Engel, 1987;Iacono, Lykken, Peloquin, Lumry, Valentine, & Tuason, 1983;Thorell, Kjellman, & D'Elia, 1987;Williams, Iacono, & Remick, 1985), heart rate (Albus et al, 1987;Pignatiello, Camp, Elder, & Rasar, 1989), and reaction time (Hill & Dutton, 1989;. As a result, we hypothesized that LTLs would exhibit hypoarousal, rather than hyperarousal, in a successlfailure performance paradigm, where the possibility of failure would be likely to activate their depressive tendency.…”