Major Depressive Disorder in recovery and neuropsychological functioning: Effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and dual inhibitor depression treatments on residual cognitive deficits in patients with Major Depressive Disorder in recovery

Nov 10, 2009Journal of affective disorders

How two types of antidepressants affect remaining thinking problems in people recovering from major depression

AI simplified

Long Covid on OpenScience ↗PubMed ↗DOI ↗

Abstract

Cognitive functions improve over time in patients with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) beyond the remission phase.

Control subjects demonstrated better overall cognitive performance than MDD patients during both the remission and recovery phases.
Several cognitive functions in MDD patients showed improvement over a 24-week period.
Patients treated with dual serotonergic-noradrenergic reuptake inhibitors (SNRI) exhibited better memory performance compared to those in the remission phase.
The type of antidepressant treatment received during the acute depressive phase may affect memory improvement in the recovery phase.
The findings are based on a relatively small sample size and a follow-up duration of 6 months.

AI simplified

INTRODUCTION: Cognitive disturbances in Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) could persist beyond the symptomatic phase of the illness. However, the works addressing this topic did not usually account for the possible impact of medication on the cognitive functions of depressed patients. The present study aims to investigate whether MDD patients in remission treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) or dual serotonergic-noradrenergic reuptake inhibitors (SNRI) show cognitive deficits, to study whether the same patients suffer neuropsychological disturbances when they are unmedicated and in recovery phase, and if the previous pharmacological treatment used to achieve the remission of MDD clinical symptoms had any effect in the profile of these patients' cognitive performance in the recovery phase.

METHODS: Thirty-six subjects with MDD treated with escitalopram and 37 depressed patients with duloxetine were compared both in remission phase and 24 weeks later, when they were unmedicated and in recovery phase. They were also compared, in both moments, to 37 healthy subjects.

RESULTS: The control subjects showed a broader better cognitive performance than MDD patients in both measurement moments, but several cognitive functions improved over time. Also, the patients treated with SNRI performed better in memory tests than the SNRI-treated patients in remission phase, and in recovery phase.

LIMITATIONS: Our sample size is somewhat small, and we followed our patients only for 6months after treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: Cognitive functions improve over time in patients with MDD beyond the remission phase, and the antidepressant treatment class used in acute depressive phase could influence his/her memory improvement.

Full Text

Full text is available at the source.

View full text (XML) ↗View full text ↗

Major Depressive Disorder in recovery and neuropsychological functioning: Effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and dual inhibitor depression treatments on residual cognitive deficits in patients with Major Depressive Disorder in recovery

Abstract

Full Text

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the long covid brief

Abstract

Full Text

Related papers

You found one interesting study. We’ll send the next 7.

what lands in your inbox each week:

Recent issues from the long covid brief