Normal N400 in mood disorders.
Individuals diagnosed with major depression have been characterized as having a variety of cognitive problems based on a number of behavioral and psychophysiological measures, but it is not clear whether there is a consistent language processing abnormality in depression. Three studies sought to determine whether diverse mood disordered samples show abnormal semantic processing, as indexed by a failure to show increased N400 event-related brain potential amplitudes to passively viewed incongruent, relative to congruent sentence endings. Individuals with major depression (N = 50) or dysthymia (N = 14) had N400 amplitudes similar to those of controls (N = 41) in this sentence processing paradigm. These results are consistent with a small behavioral literature suggesting intact semantic processing in depression and further indicate that abnormal controlled processing in some tasks does not simply reflect a generalized deficit.
Deldin
Patricia
P
University of Michigan, 525 E University, 2252 East Hall, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. pjdeldin@umich.edu
Keller
Jennifer
J
Casas
Brooks R
BR
Best
Jennifer
J
Gergen
John
J
Miller
Gregory A
GA
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D019263:Dysthymic Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology