University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, 3811 O'Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA.
Old Dominion University, Department of Psychology, 250 Mills Godwin Life Sciences Building, Norfolk, VA, 23529, USA.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2023 Dec;81:101852. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2023.101852. Epub 2023 Feb 28.
Depression impairs working memory (WM). And, while many studies have documented impairment in WM during depression remission, those using the N-back task did not find differences between individuals with remitted depression and healthy controls. One reason for these findings may be that certain depression phenotypes, such as the childhood-onset form, which is likely to be associated with persistent WM problems, are underrepresented or unevenly represented in the studies. Because childhood-onset depression (COD) affects individuals while cognitive development is still ongoing, it is more likely to have lasting detrimental effects, as evidenced in residual memory impairment, than depression that onsets later in life. Further, it is unclear if depression episodes have cumulative effects on WM when measured via the N-back.
We examined the effects of depression on WM performance (response time, accuracy, signal detection d') and subjective experience (difficulty, mental effort required) during a four-level N-back task among 112 adults with COD (42 currently depressed; 70 remitted depressed) and 80 never-depressed controls.
Compared to never-depressed controls, there was minimal evidence of impaired WM performance among participants with remitted or current depression; the groups also reported overall similar subjective experiences during the N-back. Notably, number of lifetime depressive episodes had a detrimental cumulative effect on response accuracy and d'.
WM was assessed only in regard to verbal memory. The sample size of currently depressed cases was smaller than that of the other groups.
WM remains largely intact among adults with remitted COD, but increased number of depression episodes worsens WM performance.
抑郁会损害工作记忆（WM）。虽然许多研究记录了抑郁缓解期 WM 的损伤，但使用 N-back 任务的研究并未发现缓解期抑郁患者与健康对照组之间存在差异。这些发现的一个原因可能是某些抑郁表型（如儿童起病型，其可能与持续的 WM 问题有关）在研究中代表性不足或不均衡。由于儿童起病型抑郁（COD）在认知发展仍在进行时影响个体，因此与成年后起病的抑郁相比，它更有可能产生持久的不利影响，证据是残留的记忆损伤。此外，当通过 N-back 进行测量时，抑郁发作是否对 WM 产生累积影响尚不清楚。
我们在 112 名患有 COD 的成年人（42 名当前抑郁；70 名缓解抑郁）和 80 名从未抑郁的对照组中，检查了抑郁对 WM 表现（反应时间、准确性、信号检测 d'）和主观体验（难度、所需的心理努力）的影响，在 4 级 N-back 任务中。
与从未抑郁的对照组相比，缓解或当前抑郁的参与者的 WM 表现仅有轻微受损的证据；这些组在 N-back 期间也报告了总体相似的主观体验。值得注意的是，终生抑郁发作次数对反应准确性和 d'具有不利的累积影响。
仅评估了 WM 在言语记忆方面的情况。当前抑郁病例的样本量小于其他组。
缓解期 COD 成人的 WM 基本完好，但抑郁发作次数的增加会使 WM 表现恶化。
