Depression and anxiety
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Depression and anxiety · Oct 2018
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter StudyModerating effect of comorbid anxiety disorders on treatment outcome in a randomized controlled psychotherapy trial in early-onset persistently depressed outpatients.
Persistent depressive disorder (PDD) is associated with high rates of comorbid psychiatric disorders, mostly anxiety disorders (ADs). Comorbid AD was found to be associated with poorer treatment outcome in PDD patients. The effect of comorbid AD on disorder-specific treatment for PDD (Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy [CBASP]) has not been studied yet. ⋯ Patients suffering from PDD comorbid with AD might experience greater benefit when they are treated with specific as opposed to unspecific therapy. Analyzing subgroups of patients with PDD seems worthwhile to improve treatment effectiveness even within disorder-specific treatment programms.
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Depression and anxiety · Oct 2018
Exposure-based therapy changes amygdala and hippocampus resting-state functional connectivity in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder.
Recent research suggests that posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with altered amygdala and hippocampal resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC). However, less research has examined whether Prolonged Exposure (PE), a first line exposure-based treatment for PTSD, has the potential to alter resting state neural networks. ⋯ Enhanced amygdala and hippocampus rsFC with prefrontal cortical regions following PE could underlie improved capacity for inhibition and re-evaluation of threat, and heightened memory encoding and retrieval ability, respectively. These findings encourage further investigation of this circuitry as a therapeutic target in PTSD.
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Depression and anxiety · Oct 2018
CBT and positive psychology interventions for clinical depression promote healthy attentional biases: An eye-tracking study.
Although there is a growing interest in the role of attentional biases in depression, there are no studies assessing changes in these biases after psychotherapeutic interventions. ⋯ Findings reveal for the first time that psychotherapeutic interventions are associated with a significant change in attentional biases as assessed by a direct measure of attention. Furthermore, these changes seem to operate in the same direction typically found in healthy populations (i.e., a bias away from negative information and a parallel bias toward positive information). These findings illustrate the importance of considering attentional biases as clinical markers of depression and suggest the viability of modifying these biases as a potential tool for clinical change.