Patterns of negative affective biases associated with depressive symptoms and during remission in large community-based sample

Background: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is associated with negative affective cognitive biases. Differences on population level however remain unclear, including whether they normalise with remission. This study investigated associations between affective cognition and MDD within a large community-based sample.Methods: Participants from Generation Scotland (N=1,179) completed three affective tasks: (i) Bristol Emotion Recognition Task (BERT), (ii) Face Affective Go/No-go (FAGN), and (iii) Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT). After exclusions, individuals were classified as MDD-current (n=43), MDD-remitted (n=282), or non-MDD controls (n=784). Main analyses tested for hypothesised associations between affective bias summary measures and depressive symptoms, and for differences in affective biases between MDD-remitted versus non-MDD subjects. Exploratory analyses examined responses per task condition in more detail.Results: We found an association between greater depressive symptom severity and lower risk adjustment (CGT win, standardised coefficient =-0.02, p=0.03). This was attenuated when non-affective cognition (g) was accounted for, or when restricting analysis to those not currently taking antidepressant medication. Main analysis revealed no further clear evidence of affective biases, neither for MDD-remitted individuals. Exploratory analyses however suggested more subtle negative biases associated with depressive symptoms.Conclusions: Individuals with high depressive ratings were less likely to bet more despite increasingly favourable win conditions, which may indicate lower reward motivation, but could also be explained by lower non-affective cognitive functioning. Overall, results from this community-based sample showed limited evidence for overarching cognitive affective differences in MDD, though subtle negative biases related to current symptom severity suggested by exploratory analyses across the whole sample.