Behavioral Adaptation to Negative Social Cues in Depressed Patients According to Personal History of Suicide Attempt

To identify the nature of the mechanisms involved in social decisions, Mennella and coll. have developed a computerized task (waiting room task) in which the participant is asked to avoid or to approach individuals expressing negative emotional expressions, in this case: anger or fear. In practice, participants have to choose between two chairs to sit in a waiting room in which subjects expressing a neutral face or negative emotions are present. To make this choice they must press a specific keyboard button. In addition to that, in order to evaluate motivation, some of the trials are reversed, meaning that the choice made by the participant will result in the opposite result.

Using this task they have shown that: (1) anger is associated with more avoidance behavior than fear, (2) this behavior is goal- directed and, (3) the higher the level of impulsivity of the subjects, the less able they are to adapt their responses.

The proposed study will use this neuropsychological assessment, the waiting room task, to evaluate if depressed patients would avoid or approach individuals expressing negative facial emotions. The main objective is to compare behavioral adaptation to anger vs neutral cues among depressed patients with and without history of suicide attempt.

The study also aims to :

1. compare behavioral response to fear vs. neutral and anger vs. fear in depressed patients according to suicidal history ;
2. assess the modulation of behavioral adaptation by history of childhood maltreatment, level of impulsivity, anxiodepression and anhedonia;
3. correlate behavioral adaptation to negative cues (anger and fear) with decision-making performances using the Iowa Gambling Task.