Depression predicts procedural but not episodic memory in HIV-1 infection

Forty-three homosexual/bisexual males with HIV-1 infection participated in a study that sought to determine: (1) whether increased levels of self-reported depressive symptomatology were associated with poorer performance on episodic or procedural memory tasks, (2) the relative strength of association between the affective/cognitive or somatic symptoms of depression and memory deficits and level of immunosuppression, and (3) whether increased depression or neuropsychological deficits are associated with degree of immunosuppression. Linear regression analyses revealed that increased affective/cognitive symptomatology was correlated with poorer performance on a procedural memory task, but was not correlated with performance on an episodic memory task or degree of immunosuppression. In contrast, somatic symptoms showed the strongest association with level of immunosuppression, but were not correlated with performance on the memory tasks. These findings underscore the complex interplay between neuropsychiatric and neuropsychological symptomatology in HIV-1 infection.