Cognitive functioning in young and middle-aged unmedicated out-patients with major depression: testing the effort and cognitive speed hypotheses
Cognitive functioning in young and middle-aged unmedicated out-patients with major depression: testing the effort and cognitive speed hypotheses
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DOI：
10.1017/s003329170300833x
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发表时间：
2003-11-01
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
Jolles, J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Den Hartog, HM;Derix, MMA;Jolles, J
背景认知缺陷在重度抑郁症中很常见，但其性质尚不清楚。努力假说指出，与自动任务的表现相比，努力任务的表现不成比例地受损。认知速度假说指出，抑郁症的特征是认知缓慢，这是认知功能障碍的一个来源。本研究调查了这两种理论在未经药物治疗的成年抑郁症患者。还调查了认知缺陷是否可以归因于更一般的身体疾病相关因素或具体到抑郁症。将30例非精神病性抑郁症门诊患者与38例健康对照组和25例严重变应性鼻炎患者进行比较。采用MANCOVA分析方法，考察了认知速度（概念转换任务、Stroop色词测验、记忆扫描测验）和记忆提取（视觉言语学习任务、言语流畅性测验）两项认知任务中，小组对自动化程度更高、努力程度更高的任务的影响。年龄、性别、教育程度和病前智力作为协变量。抑郁组在Stroop的自动加工子任务、记忆扫描和记忆广度上存在认知缺陷。在更费力的任务上的表现没有受到影响。我们的研究结果更符合认知速度假说。抑郁症的认知功能似乎以自动子任务中信息处理速度降低为特征。
Background. Cognitive deficits are common in major depressive disorder, but their nature is unclear. The effort hypothesis states that performance on effortful tasks is disproportionately impaired compared with the performance on automatic tasks. The cognitive speed hypothesis states that depression is characterized by cognitive slowness, which is a source of cognitive dysfunctioning. The present study investigated both theories in unmedicated adult depressive patients. It was also investigated whether the cognitive deficits can be attributed to more general physical illness-related factors or specifically to depressive disorder.Method. Thirty non-psychotic depressive out-patients were compared with 38 healthy control subjects and 25 patients with severe allergic rhinitis. The effects of group on more automatic and more effortful aspects of cognitive tasks measuring cognitive speed (Concept Shifting Task, Stroop Colour Word Test, Memory Scanning Test) and memory retrieval (Visual Verbal Learning Task, Verbal Fluency Test) were evaluated by MANCOVA. Age, sex, education and pre-morbid intelligence were treated as covariates.Results. The depressive group had cognitive deficits in the automatic processing subtask of the Stroop, memory scanning and memory span. Performance on more effortful tasks was not impaired.Conclusions. Our results are more consistent with the cognitive speed hypothesis. Cognitive functioning in depressive disorder seems to be characterized by a reduced speed of information processing in automatic subtasks.