Pathophysiology of Cognitive Impairment in Depression
Abstract Major depression is associated with substantial cognitive impairment. Deficits in attention, memory, and executive functions affect most of those with depression and persist into remission for a substantial proportion. A growing body of research links prefrontal and hippocampal function to these cognitive impairments in depression. Further, overactivation of networks is common in depression, only to produce typical performance on cognitive tasks. Thus, we can view depression as a disorder of cognitive dysfunction related to both underactive and inefficient neural processing.