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Cited by 359Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesTreatment of Major DepressionAnxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes

Executive functions and updating of the contents of working memory in unipolar depression

Harvey, P.O., Le Bastard, G., Pochon, J.B., Levy, R., Allilaire, J.F., Dubois, B., Fossati, P.·2004·Journal of Psychiatric Research
DOI 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2004.03.003
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Abstract

Background Depression is characterized by cognitive impairments, including executive dysfunctions. These executive deficits could reflect impairments of more basic executive processes, such as updating, set shifting and inhibition. While shifting and inhibition impairments are often reported, studies on depression have been somewhat obscure about specific deficits of the updating process. The main goal of that study was to assess the updating process in young in-patients with depression.Methods We used a verbal n-back task to assess updating process. Load and mental manipulation within working memory (WM) were incremented by using three different levels of complexity (1,2,3-back). Neuropsychological tests and an attentional task (0-back) were also administered to subjects. Twenty-two individuals meeting DSM-IV criteria for Major Unipolar Depression and 22 healthy control subjects, matched on age, verbal IQ and education, were included in the study.Results Subjects with depression showed significant deficits at the n-back task compared to control subjects. They were normal in tasks assessing the short-term maintenance in WM and attention. This suggests that depressed patients exhibit impairment in the updating process. Depressed patients also showed set shifting and inhibition deficits. Only the n-back task was correlated with the number of hospitalizations and the longitudinal course of the illness.Conclusions Our results suggest that young depressed in-patients have widespread executive dysfunctions, including updating, shifting and inhibition processes. We also found a correlation between a longitudinal measure of depression severity and an updating task performance. We suggest that using multiple executive tasks gives the opportunity to distinguish the specific influence of various executive processes on clinical dimensions in depression.

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  • In Harvey et al. (2004), shifting, inhibition and working memory were significantly impaired in depressed patients, but only n-back working memory performance was significantly negatively associated with patients' number of previous hospitalizations.

    “Shifting, inhibition, and WM were significantly impaired in patients. However, only the n-back task performance (purportedly an index of WM) was significantly negatively associated with patients’ number of previous hospitalizations.”

    From Executive Function Deficits in Daily Life Prospectively Predict Increases in Depressive Symptoms (2014) · cites this paper as Harvey et al. (2004)

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Authors
Harvey, P. O., Le Bastard, G., Pochon, J. B., Levy, R., Allilaire, J. F., Dubois, B., & Fossati, P.
Affiliations
  • Inserm (FR)
  • Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
Corresponding author
  • Harvey, P.O.
  • Fossati, P.
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Psychiatric Research
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2004-11
Volume
38
Issue
6
Pages
567-576
ISSN
0022-3956 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.jpsychires.2004.03.003
OpenAlex
W2119471554
Cited by
359
References
37
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 25 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 25
FWCI
5.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Journal of Psychiatric Research (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pharmacology › Treatment of Major Depression
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
Keywords
major depressive disorder, executive function, working memory updating, n-back task, set-shifting, inhibition, cognitive impairment in depression, depression severity, hospitalization history
MeSH terms
Adult, Age Factors, Cognition Disorders, Depressive Disorder, Female, Humans, Intelligence Tests, Male, Memory Disorders, Mental Processes, Middle Aged, Severity of Illness Index, Case-Control Studies, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

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