Neuro-cognitive processes as mediators of psychological treatment effects

Psychological interventions are first-line treatments of depression. Despite a rich theoretical background, the mediators of treatment effects remain only partially understood: it has been difficult to precisely delineate the targets psychological interventions engage, and even more difficult to differentiate amongst the targets engaged by different psychological interventions. Here, we outline these issues and discuss a surprisingly understudied approach, namely the study of cognitive and computational tasks to measure psychological treatment targets. Such tasks benefit from substantial advances in cognitive neuroscience over the past two decades, and have excellent face validity. We discuss two candidate tasks for back-translation and conclude with a critical evaluation of potential problems associated with this neuro-cognitive approach.

Automated summary

Psychological interventions are the first-line treatments for depression, but the mediators of treatment effects remain only partially understood. The study of cognitive and computational tasks to measure psychological treatment targets presents a promising yet understudied approach to address these issues.