In a new study recently published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, researchers from Bartin University and Istanbul Medipol University in Turkey shed light on the intricate connection between depression and cognitive function, specifically visuospatial memory. This study shows that depression can affect more than just emotional symptoms. It can also affect cognitive abilities, possibly leading to changes in the brain’s structure and function, especially in the prefrontal cortex and deeper parts like the amygdala.

Previous studies had mixed results on how depression affected cognitive abilities and brain activity during cognitive tasks. This is what motivated Ozge Vural Keleş and Erol Yıldırım to look into these problems more.

To explore the relationship between depression and visuospatial working memory, the researchers administered the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) to 501 volunteer university students and graduates. The study included 23 individuals with high depression scores and 20 with low depression scores, with similar ages and education levels in both groups.

Participants engaged in a visuospatial 2-back working memory task, assessing their working memory performance. This task required remembering the location of visual stimuli (faces or words) within a circular display and determining if the current stimulus matched the one presented two steps back in the sequence (the “2-back” condition). Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to record brain responses in the prefrontal cortex during the task.

Surprisingly, the results indicated no significant behavioral differences between the high and low BDI groups, suggesting that visuospatial memory abilities were similar in both groups. However, fNIRS showed that people with high BDI scores had more activity in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex while they were doing the task compared to people with low BDI scores. This suggests that the high BDI group exerted additional effort to achieve similar performance.

Although the study has some limitations, such as the lack of an official clinical diagnosis in the high BDI group and the relatively low task difficulty, it provides valuable insights into the relationship between depression and cognitive function. The findings highlight the complexities of depression’s impact on cognitive abilities and offer new avenues for future research in this field. Understanding these complexities is crucial for providing better support and interventions for individuals dealing with depression.

Cited Works:

Setionago, Bianca. “Depression Linked to Increased Frontal Brain Activity during Memory Tasks, Finds New Research.” PsyPost, October 20, 2023. https://www.psypost.org/2023/10/depression-linked-to-increased-frontal-brain-activity-during-memory-tasks-finds-new-research-214075?fbclid=IwAR2bAybaQYAO_cG9OAMNgA8DdauoLIdDzy8YJrdtDWk1dS6u8GurzZ4V-7o.