Neuropsychological disorders in patients with major depression

SUMMARY

Objectives. To compare neuropsychological performance between adults with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and adults without depression on three cognitive domains: attention, explicit memory and executive function.

Materials and methods. 18 MDD adults and 15 adults without depression were evaluated by neuropsychological tests such as Stroop, TMT, TAVEC, Rey figure, Wisconsin-64, and others, and compared their performance. 

Results. No differences in explicit memory were found, but differences in a sustained attention measure and conceptualization and perceptual organization and analysis/synthesis in executive function, with worse results for MDD adults. Memory complaints were also significant in MDD adults.

Conclusions. Memory failures, frequently reported in studies and referred by patients, can be due basically to important failures in attention or executive function, which could explain difficulties for information codification and recall.