title: Cognitive impairment and its associations with the path of illness in affective disorders: a comparison between patients with bipolar and unipolar depression in remission.
abstract: The goals of this study were to investigate differences in neurocognitive performance between groups of patients with unipolar major depressive disorder (MDD) or bipolar I disorder (BD-I) in a euthymic state, and to analyze associations among cognitive performance, sociodemographic and clinical variables, and global functioning. The study evaluated 25 outpatients with MDD and 25 outpatients with BD-I. Controls consisted of a sample of 29 healthy adult volunteers. All of the subjects were administered a battery of neuropsychological tests (Babcock Story Recall Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Trail Making Test Part B, Stroop Color and Word Test, Symbol- Number Association Test, and Digit Span). Patients demonstrated reduced performance on tasks involving executive functions (Trail Making Test Part B and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and attention (Digit Span and Symbol-Number Association Test) compared with healthy controls. Performance on neurocognitive tasks did not differentiate patients with MDD from those with BD-I. Improved performance on tasks that assessed executive functions by patients with BDI and MDD, considered as a single group, was associated with better global functioning, even when controlling for several sociodemographic and clinical confounders. Patients with MDD and BD-I showed a similar profile of information-processing deficits and similar global functioning. Global functioning was also moderately associated with performance on executive function tasks.
authors.affiliation: University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
authors.forename: Benyamin D
authors.initials: BD
authors.lastname: Daniel
authors.forename: Arianna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Montali
authors.forename: Maria Lidia
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Gerra
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Innamorati
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Girardi
authors.forename: Maurizio
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pompili
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Amore
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology*; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055815:Young Adult