Positivity Training: Effects of a Bias Modification Training on Emotion Processing in Major Depression and healthy Controls

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Thomas Frodl; Privatdozent Dr. Bernhard W. Müller
• Subject Area: Biological Psychiatry ; Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 507720021

In people with depression, negative schemas affect information processing not only by directing attention to negative events, but also by altering the processing of positive events. In a preceding study, using a dot-probe task, we showed that training to implicitly focus on positive events reduced depressive symptoms. EEG-derived Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) has been shown in recent studies to be sensitive to early, automated emotion processing. Most recently, it has been reported that patients with major depression show a reduced EPN for faces with positive emotions compared to control subjects. In an ongoing study, we can confirm the specific sensitivity of the EPN for the processing of emotionally positive stimuli with our own data. In this experimental, randomized, single-blinded study, we therefore aim to perform app-based positivity training in 120 patients with depressive disorder and in 120 healthy subjects compared to control training, and to use this experimental intervention as a starting point for investigating altered information processing to positive stimuli. Participants will independently perform app-based positivity training based on a dot-probe task over 2 weeks in ten sessions, lasting 25 minutes per session. Clinical and EEG measures will be assessed before and after. A clinical follow-up examination will complement the assessment of intervention effects. All patients will continue standard antidepressant, guideline-compliant treatment otherwise provided. The primary outcome criterion is the change in EPN in the processing of positive stimuli. We expect that positivity training will particularly alter automated processing of positive stimuli in depression. The investigation of further EEG components of information processing and of EEG microstates will allow to distinguish the effects of automated, early information processing from more attention-dependent processes and thus to better understand the biological basis of such positivity training in depression in direct comparison to healthy control subjects.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants