Abstract
Background
Anxiety and depression are highly comorbid and share clinical characteristics, such as high levels of negative emotion. Attention toward negative stimuli in anxiety and depression has been studied primarily using negative pictures. Yet, negative mental imagery—that is, mental representations of imagined negative events or stimuli—might more closely mirror patient experience.
Methods
The current study presents the first examination of neural response to negative imagery in 57 adults (39 female) who all shared a common “focal fear” diagnosis (i.e., specific phobia or performance‐only social anxiety disorder), but varied in levels of comorbid anxiety and depression. After listening to standardized descriptions of negative and neutral scenes, participants imagined these scenes as vividly as possible. Associations between categorical and continuous measures of depression, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and social anxiety disorder with electrocortical and subjective responses to negative imagery were assessed.
Results
Individuals who were more depressed showed reduced electrocortical processing of negative imagery, whereas those with GAD showed increased electrocortical processing of negative imagery—but only when controlling for depression. Furthermore, participants with higher levels of depression rated negative imagery as less negative and those with greater social anxiety symptoms rated negative imagery more negatively.
Conclusions
Depression and GAD are characterized by opposing electrocortical response to negative imagery; moreover, depression may suppress GAD‐related increases in the electrocortical processing of negative imagery. Results highlight distinctions between different dimensions of distress‐based psychopathology, and reveal the unique and complex contribution of comorbid depression to affective response in anxiety.