[Gender differences in the neurocognitive components of depression]

The clinical symptoms of major depression are paralleled by typical neurocognitive deficits. Our aim was to investigate the gender differences in neurocognitive impairment in patients with major depressive disorder.

96 patients with acute major depressive disorder meeting DSM-IV criteria participated in our study. Depression was assessed by the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, the Hamilton Depression Scale and the Beck Depression Inventory. We measured neurocognitive functions associated with verbal learning and memory (Rey Auditive Verbal Learning Test), visual reconstruction and recall (Rey-Osterreith Complex Figure Test), selective attention, executive functions and inhibitory control (Trail Making Test, Stroop Test).

Depressive patients performed significantly worse than controls in all tests. We found no gender differences in any of the tests in the control group. Depressed women performed significantly worse on tests of cognitive interference threshold compared to depressed men (Stroop III). Depressed women performed significantly worse compared to depressed men in the test of visual recall (Rey-Osterreith Complex Figure Test).

Depressed patients performed worse in all tests of neurocognitive function compared to healthy controls. Depressed women performed significantly worse compared to depressed men in tests of visuospatial recall and cognitive interference. In the light of neuroimaging studies our results suggest that in the background of gender differences we observed in depressed patients lateralisation of hippocampal function may play an important role.