Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T09:43:07.596Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Negative ion treatment increases positive emotional processing in seasonal affective disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 December 2011

C. J. Harmer ,
M. Charles ,
S. McTavish ,
E. Favaron  and
P. J. Cowen
C. J. Harmer*
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK
M. Charles
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK
S. McTavish
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK
E. Favaron
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK
P. J. Cowen
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Oxford, UK
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr C. J. Harmer, University Department of Psychiatry, Warneford Hospital, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7JX, UK. (Email: [email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Background

Antidepressant drug treatments increase the processing of positive compared to negative affective information early in treatment. Such effects have been hypothesized to play a key role in the development of later therapeutic responses to treatment. However, it is unknown whether these effects are a common mechanism of action for different treatment modalities. High-density negative ion (HDNI) treatment is an environmental manipulation that has efficacy in randomized clinical trials in seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Method

The current study investigated whether a single session of HDNI treatment could reverse negative affective biases seen in seasonal depression using a battery of emotional processing tasks in a double-blind, placebo-controlled randomized study.

Results

Under placebo conditions, participants with seasonal mood disturbance showed reduced recognition of happy facial expressions, increased recognition memory for negative personality characteristics and increased vigilance to masked presentation of negative words in a dot-probe task compared to matched healthy controls. Negative ion treatment increased the recognition of positive compared to negative facial expression and improved vigilance to unmasked stimuli across participants with seasonal depression and healthy controls. Negative ion treatment also improved recognition memory for positive information in the SAD group alone. These effects were seen in the absence of changes in subjective state or mood.

Conclusions

These results are consistent with the hypothesis that early change in emotional processing may be an important mechanism for treatment action in depression and suggest that these effects are also apparent with negative ion treatment in seasonal depression.

Keywords

Emotional processinghigh-density negative ion treatmentseasonal affective disorder
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 42 , Issue 8 , August 2012 , pp. 1605 - 1612
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, NH (1968). Likableness ratings of 555 personality trait words. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 9, 272–279.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Beck, AT, Rush, AJ, Shaw, BF, Emery, G (1979). Cognitive Therapy of Depression. Guilford Press: New York.Google Scholar
Beck, AT, Ward, CH, Mendelson, M, Mock, J, Erbaugh, J (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 4, 53–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bhagwagar, Z, Cowen, PJ, Goodwin, GM, Harmer, CJ (2004). Normalization of enhanced fear recognition by acute SSRI treatment in subjects with a previous history of depression. American Journal of Psychiatry 161, 166–168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bradley, BP, Mogg, K, Williams, R (1995). Implicit and explicit memory for emotion-congruent information in clinical depression and anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy 33, 755–770.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Browning, M, Holmes, EA, Harmer, CJ (2010). The modification of attentional bias to emotional information: a review of the techniques, mechanisms, and relevance to emotional disorders. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience 10, 8–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Critchley, HD, Lewis, PA, Orth, M, Josephs, O, Deichmann, R, Trimble, MR, Dolan, RJ (2007). Vagus nerve stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: behavioral and neural effects on encoding negative material. Psychosomatic Medicine 69, 17–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dalgleish, T, Spinks, H, Golden, AM, du Toit, P (2004). Processing of emotional information in seasonal depression across different cognitive measures. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 113, 116–126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dowdall, M, De Montigny, C (1985). Effect of atmospheric ions on hippocampal pyramidal neuron responsiveness to serotonin. Brain Research 342, 103–109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ekman, P, Friesen, WV (1976). Pictures of Facial Affect. Consulting Psychologists Press: Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
Eysenck, HJ, Eysenck, SBG (1975). Manual of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Hodder & Stoughton: London.Google Scholar
Flory, R, Ametepe, J, Bowers, B (2010). A randomized, placebo-controlled trial of bright light and high-density negative air ions for treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Psychiatry Research 177, 101–108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goel, N, Terman, M, Terman, JS, Macchi, MM, Stewart, JW (2005). Controlled trial of bright light and negative air ions for chronic depression. Psychological Medicine 35, 945–955.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grier, JB (1971). Nonparametric indexes for sensitivity and bias: computing formulas. Psychological Bulletin 75, 424–429.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gur, RC, Erwin, RJ, Gur, RE, Zwil, AS, Heimberg, C, Kraemer, HC (1992). Facial emotion discrimination: II. Behavioral findings in depression. Psychiatry Research 42, 241–251.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harmer, CJ, Cowen, PJ, Goodwin, GM (2011). Efficacy markers in depression. Journal of Psychopharmacology 25, 1148–1158.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harmer, CJ, Goodwin, GM, Cowen, PJ (2009 a). Why do antidepressants take so long to work? A cognitive neuropsychological model of antidepressant drug action. British Journal of Psychiatry 195, 102–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmer, CJ, O'Sullivan, U, Favaron, E, Massey-Chase, R, Ayres, R, Reinecke, A, Goodwin, GM, Cowen, PJ (2009 b). Effect of acute antidepressant administration on negative affective bias in depressed patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 166, 1178–1184.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodges, S, Marks, M (1998). Cognitive characteristics of seasonal affective disorder: a preliminary investigation. Journal of Affective Disorders 50, 59–64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leppänen, JM (2006). Emotional information processing in mood disorders: a review of behavioral and neuroimaging findings. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 19, 34–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malcolm, CP, Cowen, PJ, Harmer, CJ (2009). High-density negative ion treatment increases positive affective memory. Psychological Medicine 39, 1930–1932.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosenthal, NE, Genhart, M, Sack, DA, Skwerer, RG, Wehr, TA (1987). Seasonal Affective Disorder: relevance for treatment and research of bulimia. In Psychobiology of Bulimia (ed. Hudson, J. L. and Pope, H. C.), pp. 205–208. American Psychiatric Press: Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Spielberger, CD, Gorsuch, RL, Lushene, RD (1970). STAI Manual. Consulting Psychologists Press: Palo Alto, CA.Google Scholar
Spinks, H, Dalgleish, T (2001). Attentional processing and levels of symptomatology in Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD): a preliminary longitudinal study. Journal of Affective Disorders 62, 229–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Surguladze, SA, Young, AW, Senior, C, Brebion, G, Travis, MJ, Phillips, ML (2004). Recognition accuracy and response bias to happy and sad facial expressions in patients with major depression. Neuropsychology 18, 212–218.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terman, M, Terman, JS (2006). Controlled trial of naturalistic dawn simulation and negative air ionization for seasonal affective disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 163, 2126–2133.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Terman, M, Terman, JS, Ross, DC (1998). A controlled trial of timed bright light and negative air ionization for treatment of winter depression. Archives of General Psychiatry 55, 875–882.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tranter, R, Bell, D, Gutting, P, Harmer, C, Healy, D, Anderson, IM (2009). The effect of serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants on face emotion processing in depressed patients. Journal of Affective Disorders 118, 87–93.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Victor, TA, Furey, ML, Fromm, SJ, Ohman, A, Drevets, WC (2010). Relationship between amygdala responses to masked faces and mood state and treatment in major depressive disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry 67, 1128–1138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed