Executive Dysfunction in Depression: a Study of Prefrontal Dysfunction

Depression is a serious and common psychiatric disorder that affects millions of people around the world. A growing body of scientific literature has correlated depression with dysfunction in the region of the frontal lobes and consequently, executive dysfunction. The aim of this study was to examine performance of executive functioning in patients with depression. We predicted impaired performance in executive function for depressed patients in comparison to healthy controls. 50 depressed patients (mean age = 43.46, SD = 10.71) and 35 from the control group (mean age = 40.91, SD = 10.46), of both genders were assessed with the Behavioural Assessment of Dysexecutive Syndrome (BADS), the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), the Stroop Color and Word Test (Stroop Test), and the Trail Making Test (TMT). Our results revealed that patients with depression have significant deficits in executive functioning when compared with healthy controls, which was confirmed in all the neuropsychological tests we used. Our results point up the need to implement programs of neuropsychological rehabilitation in patients with depressive disorder, since neuropsychological impairments predict an unfavorable outcome of antidepressant therapy and cognitive behavior therapy. It can also be assumed that an improvement in cognitive abilities will have a positive effect on therapeutic outcome.