Neuropsychology of affective disorders

Abstract

In this review, we discuss the importance of neuropsychological deficits in unipolar and bipolar affective disorder. Cognitive impairments are a key component of both disorders and, although a number of deficits exist in the depressed state, many of these disappear on remission. We propose that state-dependent deficits in unipolar depression may be explicable in terms of alterations in emotion-dependent, or ‘hot’, processing, particularly in tasks that utilize feedback. In bipolar disorder, where impairments are also common in the euthymic state, cognitive deficits may provide putative endophenotypes, which may aid research into the biological underpinnings of mood disorders.