Sleep problems as a transdiagnostic hub bridging impaired attention control, generalized anxiety, and depression

Major Depression Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) often co-occur, but uncertainty remains regarding the neurocognitive mechanisms linked to this co-occurrence. In this study, we applied network analytic methods to characterize the associations of the attention control (AC) components, as assessed using laboratory-based measurement tools, with MDD and GAD symptoms. Of critical interest was identifying whether AC components were primarily associated with symptoms unique or common to MDD and GAD.

We computed a regularized partial correlation network to examine the associations between attention control with symptoms specific to MDD, specific to GAD, and symptoms common to MDD and GAD (n = 371).

Symptoms that are common to MDD and GAD emerged as highly influential nodes in the network. In particular, our findings pointed to sleep problems as a hub bridging attention control components to hallmark symptoms of MDD and GAD.

The present results should not be interpreted as definitive but instead as hypothesis-generating and highlighting the utility of rethinking the conceptualization of the associations between attention control, MDD, and GAD through the lens of sleep problems. Future studies would especially want to consider the temporal unfolding of the network structure.

To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify sleep problems as a potential pathway bridging together components of attention control with symptoms of GAD and MDD.