Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Depression and substance use disorders are highly recurrent disorders that often co-occur, underscoring the need to identify risk factors for relapse. Cognitive control involves a set of cognitive processes that allow selective processing of information, which includes inhibiting irrelevant information, shifting from one task to another, and updating working memory. Individuals with depression and substance use disorders exhibit difficulties exerting cognitive control, and these cognitive difficulties are associated with functional and occupational impairment. However, the link between these deficits and functioning requires further investigation. Importantly, cognitive control can be assessed in an emotional ("hot") context or a non-emotional ("cold") context. Previous research has primarily focused on deficits in cold cognitive control with limited attention to deficits in hot cognitive control, which is particularly relevant to theoretical models of depression and substance use disorder. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the hypotheses that 1) hot and cold cognitive control deficits will be observed in individuals with depression and substance use disorder and that individuals with concurrent depression and substance use disorder will exhibit the greatest severity of hot cognitive control deficits and 2) deficits in hot and cold cognitive control will be associated with functional impairment, with hot cognitive control tasks exhibiting the strongest effects of impairment. A sample of individuals with depression, substance use disorder and both depression and substance use disorder will complete computer tasks to assess the primary components of hot and cold cognitive control: inhibition, set shifting, and updating. This study will test a novel cognitive risk factor and will help advance the development of novel interventions that target critical cognitive risk factors associated with real-world functioning and illness.