Declarative Memory Impairment and Emotional Bias in Recurrent Depression with a Seasonal Pattern: The Interplay between Emotion and Cognition in Seasonal Affective Disorder

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a subtype of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with a seasonal pattern. Although it is a pathological condition limited to specific seasons of the year, during the symptomatic period, patients may experience a significant impairment of well-being and daily quality...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Brain sciences 2022-10, Vol.12 (10), p.1352
Main Authors: Iorio, Carla, Pacitti, Francesca, Rossi, Alessandro, Iorio, Paola, Pompili, Assunta
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arousal
Attention
Bias
Circadian rhythm
cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive ability
declarative memory
depression
emotion
Emotions
Hypotheses
Information processing
Melatonin
Memory
Mental depression
Quality of life
Questionnaires
Seasonal affective disorder
Seasonal variations
seasonality
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Summary:Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a subtype of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) with a seasonal pattern. Although it is a pathological condition limited to specific seasons of the year, during the symptomatic period, patients may experience a significant impairment of well-being and daily quality of life as a result of the depressed mood, associated with other symptoms defined as atypical of MDD. While extensive evidence of memory deficits has been found in MDD, explicit memory impairments in SAD are insufficiently studied. This study aims to investigate the cognitive processing of emotional stimuli in women with SAD, in particular the interplay between emotions and declarative memory. One hundred and twenty young women, screened from an initial number of 1125 university students, were divided into two groups, an experimental one that included 60 medically untreated women affected by “winter type SAD” and a control group of 60 non-SAD women. Different subjects were randomly submitted to two types of audio−visual stories, neutral or arousal, and then their memory performances were analyzed by means of a free-recall test and a recognition memory test. In both the free-recall test (p < 0.008) and in the recognition memory test (p < 0.002), the SAD group showed impaired memory performances. Taken together, our novel key findings suggest that SAD is characterized by impairment in declarative memory and attentional bias for emotional negative stimuli.
ISSN:2076-3425
2076-3425
DOI:10.3390/brainsci12101352