Emotion context insensitivity in depression: Toward an integrated and contextualized approach

Abstract

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by pervasive mood disturbance as well as deficits in emotional processing, reactivity, and regulation. There is accumulating evidence that MDD is characterized by emotional patterns consistent with environmental disengagement, as reflected in attenuated positive and negative emotional reactivity, consistent with Emotion Context Insensitivity (ECI) theory. However, MDD individuals vary considerably in the extent to which they exhibit specific alterations in patterns of emotional responding. Emotions are complex, multicomponent processes that invoke responses across multiple functional domains and levels of analysis, including subjective experience, behavior, autonomic regulation, cognition, and neural processing. In this article, I review the current state of the literature on emotional responding and MDD from the lens of ECI. I focus on the importance of assessing emotional indices from multiple levels of analysis across development and contexts. I also discuss methodological and measurement issues that may contribute to inconsistent findings. In particular, I emphasize how psychophysiological measures can help elucidate emotional processes that underlie the pathophysiology of MDD as part of an integrated and contextualized approach.

Self-Reported Depression Is Associated With Aberration in Emotional Reactivity and Emotional Concept Coding

“…Unlike previous findings (Beck and Alford, 1967;Bower, 1981;Bylsma et al, 2008), the current results neither favor the assumption of negative potentiation or mood-congruence (Beck and Alford, 1967), nor showed any support for negative attenuation as a part of integrated ECI view of depression (Bylsma et al, 2008). Participants with depressive symptoms showed neither increase (Beck and Alford, 1967;Abela et al, 2011;Hankin, 2012) nor decrease (Bylsma et al, 2008;Saxena et al, 2017;Bylsma, 2021) in emotional reactivity to the words expected to evoke negative experience.…”

“…In sum, the reduced PER to positive stimuli supports the low positive emotion model of depression (Clark et al, 1998) and extends its favor to the ECI model of depression (Bylsma et al, 2008;Rottenberg, 2017). Low positive emotional reactivity is reported as consistent (Bylsma et al, 2008;Abela et al, 2011;Hankin, 2012;Kujawa and Burkhouse, 2017;Bylsma, 2021) and a required screening method for depression (Davidson et al, 2002). However, the negative reactivity presents a conflict between mood-congruence and the ECI model of depression.…”

“…Further, individuals reporting anhedonia or depressive mood state sadness have shown blunted PER but distinct NER. Unlike anhedonia, a depressed mood state favors negative information processing, supporting the mood-congruence view (Saxena et al, 2017;Bylsma, 2021).…”

Adolescent girls’ intrapersonal and interpersonal parasympathetic regulation during peer support is moderated by trait and state co‐rumination

“…RSA is typically measured by assessing high frequency heart rate variability coinciding with respiration (HF‐HRV, see Berntson et al., 1997). Context appropriate reduction in RSA (i.e., RSA withdrawal) in response to environmental stressors (often associated with corresponding increases in SNS activity) is seen as a flexible ability to regulate biological and affective responses, while a lack of RSA fluctuation in response to the changing environment is associated with reduced ER capacity (e.g., Bylsma, 2021; Hamilton & Alloy, 2016; Porges, 1995).…”

EEG time–frequency analysis reveals blunted tendency to approach and increased processing of unpleasant stimuli in dysphoria

“…Moreover, within the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC matrix 22 ), is included a dimension believed to be a potentially unique feature contributing to depression, namely the hypoactivation of the Positive Valence System 23 . The positive attenuation hypothesis has been extended to a third alternative, the emotional context insensitivity (ECI) hypothesis 10 , which holds that depression is characterized by a hypoactivation of both motivational system 10 , 24 – 26 . Meta-analytic evidence provided support for the positive attenuation and the ECI model, but not for the negative potentiation hypothesis 20 , 25 .…”