Title: Clinical Neuropsychologist and Professor of Psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry University of Utah

Abstract: Rumination is a feature of major depressive disorder, that is considered a passive, negative, and recurrent thought patterns and habits. Like negative cognitive biases, rumination reflects the thought content (negative, potentially distorted) typical of depression. Unlike negative cognitive biases, rumination also includes habitual tendencies in responding to stressors (avoidance, passivity) which are not clearly or necessarily ascribed to negative thought patterns. As depressive rumination includes both content and habit it has been difficult to measure well. The fact that it may reflect a disengaged state from active cognitive processing means that it is often ascertained through the absence of certain mental states and behaviors, which also makes measurement challenging. The talk will focus on fMRI paradigms that are thought to capture the ruminative state and habit, behavioral correlates of increased rumination, and the relations of rumination to depression risk, poor treatment response, and frequent recurrence of depression. Moreover, it will cover strategies to intervene to change rumination, and resulting changes in resting state connectivity and task-based brain activation.