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Post-disaster depression and vigilance: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

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Abstract

The present study was designed to explore the relationships between post-disaster self-reports of depression, vigilance task performance, and frontal cerebral oxygenation. Forty participants (20 women) performed vigilance tasks following a magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand. In addition to performance, we measured self-reports of depression, anxiety, and stress anchored to the initial earthquake event, and frontal cerebral activity with functional near-infrared spectroscopy. Among the participants, one case may have been an outlier with extremely elevated levels of self-reported depressivity. Excluding the extreme case, there was a correlation between change in response time (response slowing) and depressivity. Including the case there was a correlation between depressivity and right hemisphere oxygenation. These results provide some support for a relationship between moderate depressivity and sustained attention difficulties.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand

    William S. Helton, Ulrike Ossowski & Sanna Malinen

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  1. William S. Helton
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  2. Ulrike Ossowski
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  3. Sanna Malinen
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Correspondence to William S. Helton.

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Helton, W.S., Ossowski, U. & Malinen, S. Post-disaster depression and vigilance: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study. Exp Brain Res 226, 357–362 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3441-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3441-4

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