Impairments to the Functions of Spatial Working Memory in Mild Depression and their Neurophysiological Correlates
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Impairments to the Functions of Spatial Working Memory in Mild Depression and Their Neurophysiological Correlates S. A. Galkin, A. G. Peshkovskaya, G. G. Simutkin, S. N. Vasil’eva, O. V. Roshchina, S. A. Ivanova, and N. A. Bokhan
Translated from Zhurnal Nevrologii i Psikhiatrii imeni S. S. Korsakova, Vol. 119, No. 10, Iss. 1, pp. 56–61, October, 2016. Original article submitted May 15, 2019. Accepted June 11, 2019. Objectives. To identify the characteristics of impairments to spatial working memory and their neurophysiological correlates in patients with mild depressive disorders. Materials and methods. A total of 30 patients (right-handed) with ICD-10 diagnoses of Mood Disorder (F31.3, F32.0, F33.0, F34.1) were studied before treatment started. Mean age was 37 ± 8 years. The control group consisted of 30 mentally and somatically healthy subjects (mean age 32 ± 7 years). Spatial working memory was investigated using the Corsi Block-Tapping test. Electroencephalography (EEG) studies were also run for analysis of spectral power in the θ, α, and β ranges. Results and conclusions. Decreases in spatial working memory were seen in mild depressive disorders and this corresponded to high EEG θ-rhythm power in the frontal and occipital areas and α-rhythm power in the frontal cortex. Keywords: depression, cognitive functions, spatial working memory, electroencephalographic correlates.
Introduction. Studies of cognitive impairments in affective disorders currently focus mainly on the features of information processing, though patients with depression can also show changes in other cognitive functions such as attention, thinking, and memory [1–3]. Depression has been shown [1, 4] to involve, particularly, functional impairments to the executive functions and working memory (WM). WM is a system supporting the temporary storage of information; it is the basis of many cognitive functions, such as understanding speech, thinking, problem-solving, and learning [1]. Neuroimaging studies have shown that dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex decreases the level of WM in patients with severe depressive disorders [5]. A number of investigations in which WM was studied using the n-back test (requires memorization of a set of pictures, after which a new set is presented, and the response consists of stating the number of pictures present in both sets) showed that the accuracy of symbol reproduction was lower and response time was significantly greater in patients with depression
than healthy people [6]. These studies showed that negative emotions had different influences on spatial WM in healthy people and patients with depressive disorders of different severities [5, 6]. For example, studies of patients with mild depression showed that negative emotions had no effect on the memorization of words, but affected spatial WM, this being apparent as a reduction in the ability to remember sequences of symbols [7]. Other studies [1, 5] investigated patients with severe depression and demonstrated more profound cognitive impairments [1, 5]. Spat
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