Examining smartphone-assessed executive function metrics and intrinsic resting-state functional connectivity in depression.
10 affiliations
- 1Stephen M. Stahl Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA. [email protected].
- 2Stephen M. Stahl Center for Psychiatric Neuroscience, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
- 3Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
- 4Department of Psychiatry, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
- 5Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
- 6Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
- 7Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
- 8Translational Research Center, University Hospital of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
- 9Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy, Center of Mental Health, University Hospital Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
- 10Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.
Abstract
Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a common and costly mental health condition that is often associated with deficits in executive function. Smartphone applications ("apps") have emerged as promising methods for assessing mental health-related outcomes in individuals' daily lives that can detect changes that unfold over time. Although smartphone apps have been used to evaluate executive functioning in individuals with neurological conditions and in other mental health disorders, few studies have examined this in MDD. The present study tested whether smartphone-assessed executive function is (1) impaired in individuals with current MDD (cMDD; n = 30) relative to healthy controls (HC; n = 42) and (2) related to resting-state functional connectivity within cognitive control-related neural networks. For two weeks, participants completed a set-shifting (Trail Making Test, TMT-B) task on their smartphone. Participants with cMDD had significantly lower TMT accuracy (β = -0.24, p = 0.044) and greater variability in TMT accuracy (β = 0.25, p = 0.049) compared to HC. Resting-state analyses revealed that the association between TMT accuracy and connectivity between nodes of the dorsal attention network (bilateral intraparietal sulcus) was greater in HC than cMDD. The results extend previous laboratory-based findings by demonstrating that individuals with cMDD exhibit poorer mean-level smartphone assessed set-shifting performance and greater variability, along with altered set-shifting-related functional connectivity within the dorsal attention network. Smartphone-based assessments may offer a scalable and accessible approach for identifying executive function deficits in individuals with depression, which could be a useful tool for monitoring cognitive performance over time.
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BibTeX
@article{heckel2026examining,
title = {{Examining smartphone-assessed executive function metrics and intrinsic resting-state functional connectivity in depression.}},
author = {Julia M Heckel and Aaron Clouse and David Klemballa and Joanna Hernandez and Jadyn Park and Alex D Leow and Olusola A Ajilore and Jessica A Bernard and Sebastian Walther and Vijay A Mittal and Stewart A Shankman and Allison M Letkiewicz},
journal = {Translational psychiatry},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.1038/s41398-026-04300-2},
url = {https://europepmc.org/article/MED/43009487},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Examining smartphone-assessed executive function metrics and intrinsic resting-state functional connectivity in depression.
AU - Julia M Heckel
AU - Aaron Clouse
AU - David Klemballa
AU - Joanna Hernandez
AU - Jadyn Park
AU - Alex D Leow
AU - Olusola A Ajilore
AU - Jessica A Bernard
AU - Sebastian Walther
AU - Vijay A Mittal
AU - Stewart A Shankman
AU - Allison M Letkiewicz
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/14
JO - Translational psychiatry
DO - 10.1038/s41398-026-04300-2
UR - https://europepmc.org/article/MED/43009487
AB - Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a common and costly mental health condition that is often associated with deficits in executive function. Smartphone applications ("apps") have emerged as promising methods for assessing mental health-related outcomes in individuals' daily lives that can detect changes that unfold over time. Although smartphone apps have been used to evaluate executive functioning in individuals with neurological conditions and in other mental health disorders, few studies have examined this in MDD. The present study tested whether smartphone-assessed executive function is (1) impaired in individuals with current MDD (cMDD; n = 30) relative to healthy controls (HC; n = 42) and (2) related to resting-state functional connectivity within cognitive control-related neural networks. For two weeks, participants completed a set-shifting (Trail Making Test, TMT-B) task on their smartphone. Participants with cMDD had significantly lower TMT accuracy (β = -0.24, p = 0.044) and greater variability in TMT accuracy (β = 0.25, p = 0.049) compared to HC. Resting-state analyses revealed that the association between TMT accuracy and connectivity between nodes of the dorsal attention network (bilateral intraparietal sulcus) was greater in HC than cMDD. The results extend previous laboratory-based findings by demonstrating that individuals with cMDD exhibit poorer mean-level smartphone assessed set-shifting performance and greater variability, along with altered set-shifting-related functional connectivity within the dorsal attention network. Smartphone-based assessments may offer a scalable and accessible approach for identifying executive function deficits in individuals with depression, which could be a useful tool for monitoring cognitive performance over time.
SN - 2158-3188
ER -