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Psychotherapeutic interventions tied to change in attention biases in depression

Using eye-tracking methodologies, researchers found that a cognitive behavior therapy intervention and a positive psychology intervention were linked with a significant change in attentional patterns in participants with depression.

“Research focused on analyzing changes in attentional biases after treatments for depression may clarify whether or not these biases are a stable characteristic associated with the disorder as well as their relationship with depressive symptoms,” Carmelo Vazquez, PhD, from Complutense University of Madrid School of Psychology, and colleagues wrote. “At present, there are no studies in which attentional patterns to emotional information have been directly assessed using an eye-tracking paradigm following psychological interventions for clinical depression.”

Using eye-tracking methodologies in previous research has revealed that participants with depression fixated their gaze longer on negative stimuli than control participants, but these biases were only seen in the late and controlled components of attention, according to the researchers. Vazquez and colleagues explained that this means those with depression may have a tough time releasing their gaze from negative stimuli once such stimuli have caught their attention and may also have difficulties keeping their attention on positive information.

In the current study, researchers used a validated eye-tracking procedure to evaluate changes before and after psychotherapeutic interventions in attentional biases toward emotional information (ie, happy, sad and angry faces) when presented with neutral information (ie, neutral faces) among 75 participants with major depression or dysthymia. The investigators blindly allocated participants to receive a CBT intervention (n = 41) or a positive psychology intervention (n = 34), which consisted of 10 weekly, 2-hr sessions in a group format.

According to the results, depressive symptoms decreased significantly among both treatment groups (P = .0001). Vazquez and colleagues observed a significant change in attentional performance post-therapy in patients with depression regardless of the intervention. When the authors compared pre–post attentional measures, they found a significant decrease in total time of fixations when participants looked at negative information and a significant rise when they looked at positive information (all P < .02).

These findings revealed that treatment with both interventions resulted in changing the double attentional biases to emotional information typically seen in those with depression, according to the authors.

“The fact that significant clinical changes were accompanied by significant changes in attentional biases may reflect that attentional processes are a key ingredient of change. However, the precise role of attentional processes and how they influence and interact with other cognitive processes, symptoms and neurobiological factors is still not well known,” Vazquez and colleagues concluded. “We hope that our study sheds light on the attentional mechanisms involved in symptom changes in depression.” – by Savannah Demko

Disclosure: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.