Original ArticleA Longitudinal Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Verbal Working Memory in Depression After Antidepressant Therapy
Section snippets
Participants
The MDD group consisted of dextral (Annett 1970) individuals meeting DSM-IV criteria for major depression (American Psychiatric Association 1994) by Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) (First et al. 1995) and clinical interview with a consultant psychiatrist (AC or CF). Inclusion criteria were: an acute episode of unipolar major depression, and a minimum score of 18 on the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD) (Hamilton 1960). Exclusion criteria were: any history of
Behavioral Data
In the 0-back condition, there were neither significant main effects of time or group nor any interaction effects in response accuracy or reaction time. In the n-back task, performance accuracy showed a significant main effect of load [F(2,66) = 27.08, p < .001] with all participants making more errors at the higher loads and a main effect of time [F(2,66) = 3.58, p < .03] because all subjects showed an improved performance over time, but there was no significant main effect of group [F(1,33) =
Discussion
No significant differences in performance accuracy were observed between patients with depression and healthy individuals. The maintenance of adequate performance in patients was accompanied by a significant increase in the quadratic load-response activity in the left inferior frontal cortex relative to control subjects. No other prefrontal regions showed a significant difference between groups, although a main effect of group was also observed in posterior cortical and subcortical regions
References (58)
- et al.
Stimulus preprocessing and response selection in depression: A reaction time study
Acta Psychol (Amst)
(1995) - et al.
Working memory and prefrontal cortex dysfunction: Specificity to schizophrenia compared with major depression
Biol Psychiatry
(2003) - et al.
Generic brain activation mapping in functional magnetic resonance imaging: A nonparametric approach
Magn Reson Imaging
(1997) - et al.
A parametric study of prefrontal cortex involvement in human working memory
Neuroimage
(1997) - et al.
Brain metabolic changes in major depressive disorder from pre- to post-treatment with paroxetine
Psychiatry Res Neuroim
(1999) - et al.
Appreciation of metaphoric alternative word meanings by left and right brain-damaged patients
Neuropsychologia
(1990) - et al.
Effect of sertraline on regional metabolic rate in patients with affective disorder
Biol Psychiatry
(1997) - et al.
An fMRI study of overt letter verbal fluency using a clustered acquisition sequence: Greater anterior cingulate activation with increased task demand
Neuroimage
(2002) - et al.
Cognitive control and brain resources in major depression: An fMRI study using the n-back task
Neuroimage
(2005) - et al.
Executive functions and updating of the contents of working memory in unipolar depression
J Psychiatr Res
(2004)
Effects of verbal working memory load on cortico-cortical connectivity modelled by path analysis of functional MRI data
Neuroimage
An analysis of memory dysfunction in major depression
J Affect Disord
Clinical psychomotor retardation and attention in depression
J Psychiatr Res
Bupropion and venlafaxine responders differ in pretreatment regional cerebral metabolism in unipolar depression
Biol Psychiatry
Cognitive dysfunctions in recovered melancholic patients
J Affect Disord
Regional metabolic effects of fluoxetine in major depression: Serial changes and relationship to clinical response
Biol Psychiatry
Pattern of impaired working memory during major depression
J Affect Dis
Limbic over-activity in depression during preserved performance on the n-back task
Neuroimage
Increased amygdala response to masked emotional faces in depressed subjects resolves with antidepressant treatment: An fMRI study
Biol Psychiatry
The Danish PET/depression project: Performance on Stroop’s test linked to white matter lesions in the brain
Psychiatry Res
The Danish PET/depression project: Poor verbal fluency performance despite normal prefrontal activation in patients with major depression
Psychiatry Res
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
A classification of hand preference by association analysis
Br J Psychol
Cognitive function in depression: A distinct pattern of frontal impairment in melancholia?
Psychol Med
Working Memory
Working memory: Looking back and looking forward
Nat Rev Neurosci
Changes in regional cerebral blood flow on recovery from depression
Psychol Med
Is the mechanism of prefrontal hypofunction in depression the same as in schizophrenia? Regional cerebral blood flow during cognitive activation
Br J Psychiatry
Deficits in hippocampal and anterior cingulate functioning during verbal declarative memory encoding in midlife major depression
Am J Psychiatry
Cited by (118)
The abnormal brain activation pattern of adolescents with major depressive disorder based on working memory tasks: A fNIRS study
2024, Journal of Psychiatric ResearchAn investigation of working memory deficits in depression using the n-back task: A systematic review and meta-analysis
2021, Journal of Affective DisordersExamining Specificity of Neural Correlates of Childhood Psychotic-like Experiences During an Emotional n-Back Task
2020, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging