Attention control and its emotion-specific association with cognitive emotion regulation in depression

Individuals with major depression show impaired control of attention and emotions. Both processes are conceptually similar and might share common mechanisms. The current study aims to examine attention control and its association with cognitive emotion regulation in depression. 26 patients with a history of major depression (14 females) and 26 healthy controls (14 females) performed an emotional face-word Stroop task and a cognitive emotion regulation task while undergoing fMRI. Patients and controls showed a similar behavioral performance in both tasks. Across groups, participants who were less distracted from happy faces by the incongruent word “sadness” (Stroop task) were better at regulating their happiness (emotion regulation task). Notably, both the Stroop and emotion regulation task recruited the left supramarginal gyrus. Additionally, only patients showed a relative attentional disengagement from positive compared to negative stimuli in the Stroop task. Attention control and cognitive emotion regulation capabilities appear to be linked at both the behavioral and neural level. Shared mechanisms suggest that emotional disturbances in depression may be improved by interventions that target attention control, particularly regarding the processing of positive stimuli.