Walking on the bright side: Associations between affect, depression, and gait

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 12; p. e0260893
• Main Authors: Kumar, Divya, Villarreal, Dario J, Meuret, Alicia E
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 02.12.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Affect (Psychology); Affect - physiology; Age; Aging; Biology and Life Sciences; Biomechanical Phenomena; Cognition - physiology; Depression - physiopathology; Depression, Mental; Drug use; Emotions; Female; Gait; Gait recognition; Health aspects; Humans; Male; Measuring instruments; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Middle Aged; Motion capture; Older people; Parameters; People and Places; Physiological aspects; Population studies; Psychological aspects; Psychology; Psychomotor Performance; Signs and symptoms; Social Sciences; Symptomology; Three dimensional motion; Walking; Young Adult; Young adults; United States; United States > US; Texas
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0260893

Psychomotor change is a core symptom of depression and one of the criteria in diagnosing depressive disorders. Research suggests depressed individuals demonstrate deviations in gait, or walking, compared to non-depressed controls. However, studies are sparse, often limited to older adults and observational gait assessment. It is also unclear if gait changes are due to dysregulation of affect, a core feature of depression. The current study addressed this gap by investigating the relation between positive and negative affect, depressive symptom severity, and gait in young adults. Using three-dimensional motion capture, gait parameters (velocity, stride length, and step time) were attained from 90 young adults during a task where they walked ten meters at their own pace overground in a laboratory for ten minutes. Self-report measures of mood and affect were collected. On average, the study population reported high negative and low positive affect. Contrary to our hypotheses, hierarchical regressions demonstrated no significant associations between gait parameters and affective or depressive symptoms (ps>.05). Our findings do not support a relation between affective symptoms and gait parameters. The results may indicate age-dependent gait pathology or that other symptoms of depression may influence gait more strongly than affect. They may also reflect an observational bias of gait changes in depressed young adults, one that is unsupported by objective data. Replication is warranted to further examine whether affective symptomology is embodied via gait differences in young adults.