ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to highlight the complexity involved in understanding the neuropsychological profile of depression and to discuss some of the important issues in this area. Evidence suggests that depression is associated with deficits in a range of cognitive domains, including attention, memory and executive function. The impairment tends to be relatively mild compared to that associated with neurological disorders, but is more generalized across domains. However, recent findings have suggested a possible differential sensitivity on effortful executive tasks, dependent on the function of prefrontal cortex. The exact profile of deficit may be influenced by a number of clinical and demographic factors, including severity of depression, patients’ age and effects of medication. Neuroimaging evidence, linking neuropsychological deficits to neural substrates, suggests that abnormal functioning of the frontal lobes, and particularly medial prefrontal cortex, may underpin the cognitive impairments, as well as disordered mood, in depression.
