Anterior Cerebral Asymmetry, Affect, and Psychopathology

This chapter begins with a discussion of the complex interrelationship between emotion and psychopathology, specifically in the linkage between affective-motivational dysfunction to cognitive, behavioral, and somatic dysfunctions in psychiatric disorders. The first section revisits the withdrawal-approach method of affect introduced in the previous chapter and discusses its limitations and the possible workarounds to these limitations. The applications of the said model on the comorbidity of depression and anxiety are then discussed. In the same section, the approach-deficit model of depression is introduced and support is provided in the form of related studies involving evidence from EEG, behavioral research, and neuroimaging. The studies mentioned lead to a stress-diathesis conceptualization of depression which asserts that left frontal hypoactivation combined with environmental stressors predisposes individuals to develop depression. The limitations and applications of the approach-deficit model of depression are also tackled and the remaining sections explore implications and recommendations for future research.