Frontal brain asymmetry in depression with comorbid anxiety: A neuropsychological investigation.

Abstract

The approach-withdrawal model posits that depression and anxiety are associated with a relative right asymmetry in frontal brain activity. Most studies have tested this model using measures of cortical brain activity such as electroencephalography. However, neuropsychological tasks that differentially employ left vs. right frontal cortical regions can also be used to test hypotheses from the model. In two independent samples (Study 1 and 2), the present study investigated the performance of currently depressed individuals with or without a comorbid anxiety disorder and healthy controls on neuropsychological tasks tapping primarily left (verbal fluency) or right (design fluency) frontal brain regions. Across both samples, results indicated that comorbid participants performed more poorly than depressed only and control participants on design fluency, while all groups showed equivalent performance on verbal fluency. Moreover, comorbid participants showed “asymmetrical” performance on these two tasks (i.e., poorer design [right frontal] relative to verbal [left frontal] fluency), while depressed only and control participants showed approximately symmetrical profiles of performance. Results from these two samples suggest an abnormal frontal asymmetry in neurocognitive performance driven primarily by right frontal dysfunction among anxious-depressed individuals and highlight the importance of considering comorbid anxiety when examining frontal brain functioning in depression.

Phonemic verbal fluency and severity of anxiety disorders in young children

“…In accordance with previous evidence 5 and other studies with adults, 23,24 anxiety was significantly associated with verbal fluency performance. Our current analysis revealed that for young children this association was explained by a lower number of clusters.…”

Anxious and non-anxious forms of major depression: familial, personality and symptom characteristics

“…The present findings can be considered together with emerging differences between the two disorders in functional (Andreescu et al 2009(Andreescu et al , 2011 and structural neuroimaging (Inkster et al 2011), in neuropsychiatric and sensory testing (Bruder et al 1999;Taylor Cliff et al 2011;Nelson et al 2012) and the endocrine system (Rao et al 1989;Meller et al 1995). These Table 3.…”

Depression and performance on the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status

“…Research on language deficits in depression has been somewhat mixed, with a number of studies indicating dysfunction (Henry & Crawford, 2005;Neu et al, 2005;O'Bryant et al, 2011;Sexton et al, 2012) but others reporting no deficits (Andersson, Lovdahl, & Malt, 2010;Nelson et al, 2012). Interestingly, several studies that have found verbal fluency dysfunction in depression relied on inpatient samples (Degl'Innocenti, Agren, Zachrisson, & Backman, 1998;Fossati, Amar, Raoux, Ergis, & Allilaire, 1999).…”