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Updated: Oct 17, 2025

Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression
Published on: May 19, 2015
The role of prepotent response inhibition and interference control in depression
Fan-Fan Li1,2, Xue-Lei Chen1,2, Yu-Ting Zhang1,2
1Key Laboratory of Adolescent Cyberpsychology and Behavior Central China Normal University (CCNU), Ministry of Education, Wuhan, People's Republic of China.
Introduction:
The ability to suppress inappropriate prepotent response and to overcome the interference of irrelevant information are two important components of inhibitory control. Little is known, however, about the relevant contributions in these two components of inhibitory control to depression. The aim of the present study was to assess the prepotent response inhibition and interference control simultaneously in a group of patients diagnosed with major depression disorder (MDD).
Methods:
A clinical group of patients with MDD (n = 41) and a control group of healthy volunteers (n = 39) were recruited and assessed using the stop-signal task and the Flanker task respectively.
Results:
The results showed longer stop-signal reaction time in patients with MDD in the stop-signal task. Regarding the interference control function, the analysis showed the response accuracy under the incongruent condition was significantly lower in patients with MDD than healthy individuals.
Conclusions:
In conclusion, patients with MDD showed impairments both in prepotent response inhibition and interference control. The present findings provide a better understanding of the mechanism of depression-related deficits in inhibition and have great implications for the development of cognitive training programmes to remediate cognitive dysfunction in depression.
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