Clinical Characteristics of Emotional-Cognitive Dysfunction in Major Depressive Disorder

The experiences of sustained negative affect and diminished positive emotions are cardinal symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD). They come with several emotional-cognitive dysfunctions, which contribute to the onset, maintenance, and recurrence of depression. Depressed patients show reduced approach motivation and increased avoidance motivation. Furthermore, there is evidence for a mood-congruent negative processing bias in MDD. Consequently, depressed patients preferentially attend to mood-congruent stimuli, recall more unpleasant than pleasant memories, and tend to interpret (ambiguous) information in a negative manner. Patients might also exhibit an elevated sensitivity to negative feedback. Depressive patients also show an altered thinking style referred to as rumination. Rumination implies repetitive thinking about the causes, consequences, and symptoms of one’s negative feelings. These emotional-cognitive dysfunctions characterize the contents and the way of thinking in MDD. In addition, as emotional-cognitive dysfunctions are closely related to information processing, they also impair cognitive performance of patients with MDD.