Neuropsychological deficits associated with unipolar depression are seen in a broad range of cognitive domains. Executive deficits may be prominent in depression. Investigation of executive functions in younger adult patients with unipolar depression has been the focus of our study. Twenty-two consecutively depressive inpatients (24-36 years) and 21 healthy control subjects, matched on age, gender, education and verbal IQ were included in the study. Neuropsychological tests for executive functions were applied to all subjects. Unipolar young depressives showed significantly reduced number of completed categories and more trials for completion of the first category on Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). No difference of tasks assessing the short-term memory, total errors on WCST, perseverative and non-perseverative errors, and of both phonemic and semantic conditions of verbal fluency was found between groups. The results suggested that unipolar depressives had specific cognitive style characterized by "negative cognitive set" (stronger negative reaction to negative feedback) and by failure to use negative feedback to improve their performance.
As a consequence of significant development of neurosciences several different scientific fields as neuroeducation, neuroesthetics, nerotheology, neuromarketing etc. had been established. Neuroeconomics is interdisciplinary scientific field that has aim to explain neurological mechanisms of decision making process, mental ability of consideration of several possible alternatives, and ability to follow certain direction of action. Neuroeconomics is based on research methods, techniques and models that are overtaken from neurosciences, but also from cognitive and social psychology, as well as from experimental and behavioral economics. In practical sense, neuroeconomics is mainly involved in situations in which humans are not behaving according to rational model, but rather according to innate and adapted schemes of behavior and due to their strong emotional reaction. In this way, knowledge from the scientific fields of neurology and neurosciences that are obtained mainly by usage of neuroimaging, are used in example to investigate market or to determine functioning of employees in critical situations. This kind of practical approach opens several ethical and legal dilemmas..Ključne reči: neurosciences, neuroimaging, neuroeconomics, brain imaging, freedom of choice.
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