Affective Cognitive Training in Mood Disorders and High-risk Relatives

The study will include adults aged 18-60 years with major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder who are in full or partial remission at inclusion, as well as unaffected first-degree relatives of individuals with mood disorders, with the sample enriched for individuals experiencing emotion regulation difficulties. Symptomatic stability is defined as a score of ≤14 on both the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS-17) and the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS). To accommodate an approximated drop-out rate of 20% from baseline to treatment completion, the investigators will recruit up to 100 participants until full data sets are obtained for 80 participants (40 participants per arm).

Participants will be recruited through the outpatient Copenhagen Affective Disorder Clinic, other mental health centers in the Capital Region of Denmark, through consultant psychiatrists in the Capital Region and through advertisements on relevant websites. Potentially eligible participants will receive oral and written information about the study and provide written informed consent before undergoing screening and baseline assessments.

At baseline, participants will complete a comprehensive assessment of affective and non-affective cognition. Affective cognition will be assessed using measures of emotion processing and regulation, while non-affective cognition will be assessed across domains including working memory, executive functioning, attention, processing speed and verbal learning and memory. Participants will also complete questionnaires assessing emotion regulation difficulties, habitual emotion-regulation strategies, quality of life and other relevant clinical characteristics. Psychosocial functioning will be assessed using the Functioning Assessment Short Test. Clinical assessments will include the HDRS-17 and YMRS.

Participants will additionally undergo magnetic resonance imaging, including structural imaging, resting-state functional MRI and task-based functional MRI. The task-based paradigms assess emotion reactivity and regulation, processing of emotional faces, and working memory. Biological samples, including blood and hair samples, will be collected to explore potential biological correlates and predictors of treatment response.

Following baseline assessment, participants will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to either a six-week targeted affective cognitive training program or treatment as usual. The cognitive training consists of 10 individually delivered sessions combining virtual reality scenarios and computer-based exercises. The training targets attention, executive functioning, emotion recognition, and cognitive reappraisal.

The primary outcome is change in an affective cognition composite comprising performance-based measures of emotion regulation and facial expression recognition. Secondary outcomes include changes in self-reported emotion regulation difficulties and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity during emotion regulation. Exploratory outcomes include changes in broader cognitive functioning, psychosocial functioning, quality of life and other neural and biological measures.

Cognitive assessments, clinical ratings, questionnaires, biological sampling and MRI assessments will be repeated 1 week after the intervention period. Longer-term follow-up assessments will be conducted at 6 and 24 months to explore psychosocial functioning and clinical outcomes, including relapse among participants with mood disorders and onset of psychiatric disorder among unaffected relatives.

Block randomization will be conducted using the automated randomization module in Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) based on an uploaded blocked randomization list stratified by age (< or ≥ 35 years) and diagnosis (major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder or no diagnosis).