The role of prepotent response inhibition and interference control in depression

ABSTRACT

Introduction

The ability to suppress inappropriate prepotent response and to overcome the interference of irrelevant information are two important components of inhibitory control. Little is known, however, about the relevant contributions in these two components of inhibitory control to depression. The aim of the present study was to assess the prepotent response inhibition and interference control simultaneously in a group of patients diagnosed with major depression disorder (MDD).

Methods

A clinical group of patients with MDD (n = 41) and a control group of healthy volunteers (n = 39) were recruited and assessed using the stop-signal task and the Flanker task respectively.

Results

The results showed longer stop-signal reaction time in patients with MDD in the stop-signal task. Regarding the interference control function, the analysis showed the response accuracy under the incongruent condition was significantly lower in patients with MDD than healthy individuals.

Conclusions

In conclusion, patients with MDD showed impairments both in prepotent response inhibition and interference control. The present findings provide a better understanding of the mechanism of depression-related deficits in inhibition and have great implications for the development of cognitive training programmes to remediate cognitive dysfunction in depression.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• inhibitory control
• prepotent response inhibition
• interference control

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 31700957]; MOE (Ministry of Education of China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences [grant number 17YJC190014] and Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior Central China Normal University (CCNU), Ministry of Education [grant number 2019B06].

Notes on contributors

Fan-Fan Li

Fan-Fan Li is a master student at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China.

Xue-lei Chen

Xue-lei Chen is an undergraduate student at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China.

Yu-ting Zhang

Yu-ting Zhang is a master student at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China.

Rui-ting Li

Rui-ting Li is a psychiatrist at Department of Psychiatry, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, China. Her main research interests are neurocognitive function in schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder.

Xu Li

Xu Li is an assistant professor at School of Psychology, Central China Normal University, China. Her work focuses on cognition-emotion interactions in depression.