Cognitive inhibition and working memory in unipolar depression

Benedicte Gohier; Laetitia Ferracci; Simon A. Surguladze; Emma Lawrence; Wissam El Hage; Mohamed Zied Kefi; Philippe Allain; Jean-Bernard Garre; Didier Le Gall

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2008.10.028

Cognitive inhibition and working memory in unipolar depression

Benedicte Gohier, Laetitia Ferracci, Simon A. Surguladze, Emma Lawrence, Wissam El Hage, Mohamed Zied Kefi, Philippe Allain, Jean-Bernard Garre, Didier Le Gall

King's College London

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

179 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Background: Over the past decade, evidence has accumulated to suggest that people suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) present impairment in attention, working memory, executive function, including cognitive inhibition, problem- and task-planning. The aim of the current study was to assess inhibitory mechanisms within working memory with emotionally neutral material in a group of patients suffering from MDD. We hypothesized that impairment in cognitive inhibition is global and not only due to the emotional valence of the stimuli employed for the tasks. Methods: Twenty patients with MDD (DSM-IV) and 20 healthy controls were recruited. To assess cognitive inhibition, we used neutral material, in the form of the Prose Distraction Task (PDT) (Connelly SL, 1991), Trail Making Test (TMT), Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), Rule Shift Cards (RSC), Stroop test and Hayling Sentence Completion test (HSC). The Modified 6 elements test, the Brixton Spatial Anticipation test, the dual task performance and the verbal fluencies test were also used to assess other executive function such as flexibility, planning tasks and memory. Results: Individuals with depression showed impairment in cognitive inhibition. They made more errors on the PDT, alongside slower response times. Slower response times were also observed on the Stroop, TMT and RSC. The MDD group made more errors in HSC and performed worse than controls in the semantic part of verbal fluency and Modified 6 elements tasks. The impairment of access function was significantly associated with the level of depression. Conclusion: Depressed patients showed inability to inhibit neutral information access to working memory, restrain and delete irrelevant information. This impairment in cognitive inhibition could underlie cognitive slowness and attentional deficits in depression. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	100 - 105
Number of pages	6
Journal	Journal of Affective Disorders
Volume	116
Issue number	1-2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2008.10.028
Publication status	Published - Jul 2009

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@article{60844b05e5434e299653db3e304763fe,

title = "Cognitive inhibition and working memory in unipolar depression",

abstract = "Background: Over the past decade, evidence has accumulated to suggest that people suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) present impairment in attention, working memory, executive function, including cognitive inhibition, problem- and task-planning. The aim of the current study was to assess inhibitory mechanisms within working memory with emotionally neutral material in a group of patients suffering from MDD. We hypothesized that impairment in cognitive inhibition is global and not only due to the emotional valence of the stimuli employed for the tasks. Methods: Twenty patients with MDD (DSM-IV) and 20 healthy controls were recruited. To assess cognitive inhibition, we used neutral material, in the form of the Prose Distraction Task (PDT) (Connelly SL, 1991), Trail Making Test (TMT), Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), Rule Shift Cards (RSC), Stroop test and Hayling Sentence Completion test (HSC). The Modified 6 elements test, the Brixton Spatial Anticipation test, the dual task performance and the verbal fluencies test were also used to assess other executive function such as flexibility, planning tasks and memory. Results: Individuals with depression showed impairment in cognitive inhibition. They made more errors on the PDT, alongside slower response times. Slower response times were also observed on the Stroop, TMT and RSC. The MDD group made more errors in HSC and performed worse than controls in the semantic part of verbal fluency and Modified 6 elements tasks. The impairment of access function was significantly associated with the level of depression. Conclusion: Depressed patients showed inability to inhibit neutral information access to working memory, restrain and delete irrelevant information. This impairment in cognitive inhibition could underlie cognitive slowness and attentional deficits in depression. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.",

author = "Benedicte Gohier and Laetitia Ferracci and Surguladze, {Simon A.} and Emma Lawrence and {El Hage}, Wissam and Kefi, {Mohamed Zied} and Philippe Allain and Jean-Bernard Garre and {Le Gall}, Didier",

year = "2009",

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doi = "10.1016/j.jad.2008.10.028",

language = "English",

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T1 - Cognitive inhibition and working memory in unipolar depression

AU - Gohier, Benedicte

AU - Ferracci, Laetitia

AU - Surguladze, Simon A.

AU - Lawrence, Emma

AU - El Hage, Wissam

AU - Kefi, Mohamed Zied

AU - Allain, Philippe

AU - Garre, Jean-Bernard

AU - Le Gall, Didier

PY - 2009/7

Y1 - 2009/7

N2 - Background: Over the past decade, evidence has accumulated to suggest that people suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) present impairment in attention, working memory, executive function, including cognitive inhibition, problem- and task-planning. The aim of the current study was to assess inhibitory mechanisms within working memory with emotionally neutral material in a group of patients suffering from MDD. We hypothesized that impairment in cognitive inhibition is global and not only due to the emotional valence of the stimuli employed for the tasks. Methods: Twenty patients with MDD (DSM-IV) and 20 healthy controls were recruited. To assess cognitive inhibition, we used neutral material, in the form of the Prose Distraction Task (PDT) (Connelly SL, 1991), Trail Making Test (TMT), Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), Rule Shift Cards (RSC), Stroop test and Hayling Sentence Completion test (HSC). The Modified 6 elements test, the Brixton Spatial Anticipation test, the dual task performance and the verbal fluencies test were also used to assess other executive function such as flexibility, planning tasks and memory. Results: Individuals with depression showed impairment in cognitive inhibition. They made more errors on the PDT, alongside slower response times. Slower response times were also observed on the Stroop, TMT and RSC. The MDD group made more errors in HSC and performed worse than controls in the semantic part of verbal fluency and Modified 6 elements tasks. The impairment of access function was significantly associated with the level of depression. Conclusion: Depressed patients showed inability to inhibit neutral information access to working memory, restrain and delete irrelevant information. This impairment in cognitive inhibition could underlie cognitive slowness and attentional deficits in depression. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

AB - Background: Over the past decade, evidence has accumulated to suggest that people suffering from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) present impairment in attention, working memory, executive function, including cognitive inhibition, problem- and task-planning. The aim of the current study was to assess inhibitory mechanisms within working memory with emotionally neutral material in a group of patients suffering from MDD. We hypothesized that impairment in cognitive inhibition is global and not only due to the emotional valence of the stimuli employed for the tasks. Methods: Twenty patients with MDD (DSM-IV) and 20 healthy controls were recruited. To assess cognitive inhibition, we used neutral material, in the form of the Prose Distraction Task (PDT) (Connelly SL, 1991), Trail Making Test (TMT), Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), Rule Shift Cards (RSC), Stroop test and Hayling Sentence Completion test (HSC). The Modified 6 elements test, the Brixton Spatial Anticipation test, the dual task performance and the verbal fluencies test were also used to assess other executive function such as flexibility, planning tasks and memory. Results: Individuals with depression showed impairment in cognitive inhibition. They made more errors on the PDT, alongside slower response times. Slower response times were also observed on the Stroop, TMT and RSC. The MDD group made more errors in HSC and performed worse than controls in the semantic part of verbal fluency and Modified 6 elements tasks. The impairment of access function was significantly associated with the level of depression. Conclusion: Depressed patients showed inability to inhibit neutral information access to working memory, restrain and delete irrelevant information. This impairment in cognitive inhibition could underlie cognitive slowness and attentional deficits in depression. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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DO - 10.1016/j.jad.2008.10.028

M3 - Article

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SP - 100

EP - 105

JO - Journal of Affective Disorders

JF - Journal of Affective Disorders

IS - 1-2

ER -

Cognitive inhibition and working memory in unipolar depression

Abstract

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