Neural Effects of Wellness Classes in Women With Vulnerability to Depression ("The Women's Wellness Study")

Overview

The primary objective of the study is to examine the efficacy of mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) on the prevention of relapse in women with a history of depression. Additionally, the investigators will explore how brain activity might be affected in several brain regions as a result of MBCT. This study consists of two groups, a patient group consisting of women with a history of depression and a control group consisting of healthy women. All participants within the patient group will receive an 8-week MBCT intervention program and will continue their normal medication treatment. Participants will undergo, both pre and post intervention, various behavioral and neuroimaging tasks to assess intervention effects of well-established psychological measurements related to cognitive and emotional function.

Overall, this study aims to characterize the neural and psychological effects of an eight-week mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT) intervention (online group class) in preventing depressive relapse in women with past history of major depression when exposed to different forms of self-relevant and context-specific emotional challenge. The investigators also aim to establish psychological and neural mechanisms contributing to depressive symptoms prior to intervention. A key objective of the study is to assess baseline markers of depressive symptoms and possible change resulting from the MBCT intervention from interdisciplinary perspectives, including the psychological perspective (i.e. measured with computer-based tasks, self-report ratings, questionnaires, etc.) and the neural perspective (neural activity measured with functional MRI). In addition, a critical factor the investigators will be observing is the shift from more 'narrative' to 'experiential' forms of self-related awareness as a function of MBCT. Narrative self-focus refers to a concept of self that is extended in time, including past memories and intentions for the future, together with abstract self-representations in relation to socio-emotional values. In contrast, the "experiential self-focus" refers to a more immediate self-experience and is associated with greater awareness of external stimuli and internal somatic-visceral bodily states. MBSR has been shown to increase brain activity in regions relevant for conferring "experiential" self-focus (insula-opercula, dorsal anterior cingulate/supplementary motor area), while decreasing responses in rostral-medial, lateral frontal and hippocampal regions that support the "narrative" mode of self-focus. Such changes in brain activity are associated with increased well-being. Brain regions to be examined include: 1) insula-opercula and dorsal anterior cingulate brain regions responsible for mediating 'narrative' self-focus thinking styles; 2) rostral-medial and lateral frontal, and hippocampal brain regions responsible for mediating 'experiential' self-focus thinking styles; and 3) default mode and insular-paralimbic networks thought to be involved in the generation and maintenance of depressive episodes. Behavioral Tasks 1. Breath Count Task - an objective behavioral measure of mindfulness; Dot-Probe Task - a measure of negative emotion attentional bias 2. Autobiographical Memory Interview - a means to quantify the nature of participants' autobiographical memory recall in an ecologically-valid manner 3. Free-Association Semantic Task - a measure of associative processing 4. Emotional Movies - a measure of emotional reactivity 5. N-Back Task - a measure of working memory. Neuroimaging Tasks 1. Rest Task - a means to examine brain activity and thought content during an unconstrained task 2. 'Narrative' vs 'Experiential' Task during Autobiographical Memory Recall vs. n-back - a means to examine brain activity during 'narrative' vs 'experiential' forms of self-focus during autobiographical memory recall, vs. a demanding working memory task. 3. Self-Syllable Judgment Task - a means to examine brain activity during self-judgment vs non-self-judgment tasks. Thought Sampling Participants will undergo an experience sampling paradigm in which daily thought surveys will be administered multiple times per day over the course of 7-10 days. These thought sampling surveys are designed to estimate several factors characterizing the occurrence of spontaneous thoughts in real-world settings as well as the nature and content of individuals' thoughts in real-world settings.