A quick behavioral dichotic word test is prognostic for clinical response to cognitive therapy for depression: A replication study

Abstract

There are no commonly used clinical indicators of whether an individual will benefit from cognitive therapy (CT) for depression. A prior study found right ear (left hemisphere) advantage for perceiving dichotic words predicted CT response. This study replicates this finding at a different research center in clinical trials that included clinically representative samples and community therapists. Right-handed individuals with unipolar major depressive disorder who subsequently received 12-14 weeks of CT at the University of Pittsburgh were tested on dichotic fused words and complex tones tests. Responders to CT showed twice the mean right ear advantage in dichotic fused words performance than non-responders. Patients with a right ear advantage greater than the mean for healthy controls had an 81% response rate to CT, whereas those with performance lower than the mean for controls had a 46% response rate. Individuals with a right ear advantage, indicative of strong left hemisphere language dominance, may be better at utilizing cognitive processes and left frontotemporal cortical regions critical for success of CT for depression. Findings at two clinical research centers suggest that verbal dichotic listening may be a clinically disseminative brief, inexpensive and easily automated test prognostic for response to CT across diverse clinical settings.

Keywords: Cognitive therapy; Depression; Dichotic listening; Laterality; Treatment response.

Fig. 1

CONSORT diagram for study.

Fig. 2

Asymmetry scores for CT responders and non-responders in the dichotic words and complex tones tests (Brackets= standard error of mean).

Fig. 3

Asymmetry scores in the dichotic words test for individual responders and non-responders and mean value for each group in the current study and in Kishon et al. (2015). The arrow in this figure is the mean right ear advantage for 74 healthy controls in Kishon et al. (2015)