Introduction: Processing of emotional stimuli is altered in patients with depression. The present feasibility study investigated the features of emotional information recognition in people with depressive disorders and how these differ from individuals without depression to determine whether response times could potentially be used as a diagnostic marker to identify individuals at high risk of depression and as an indicator of antidepressant medication response. Methods: The study recruited 32 individuals, 16 with single or recurrent depressive episodes and 16 control subjects without depression. Patients with depression received 8 weeks of antidepressant therapy. The severity of depressive symptoms at baseline and their changes on prescribed therapy were assessed using the Montgomery-Å sberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). The processing of emotional information was assessed using the computerized Penn Emotion Recognition Task (ER-40). Results: The two groups were well matched in terms of age and gender. There was no difference between the groups in their ability to correctly recognize happy or sad emotional facial expressions, but the average time patients with depression took to recognize a happy face was significantly longer than controls. In addition, they were more likely to misinterpret facial expressions as non-emotional. In patients with depression, the mean MADRS total score decreased from 26.3 ± 4.4 at baseline to 11.1 ± 8.9 at 8 weeks, a reduction of 57.8%. The proportion of responders with greater than 50% reduction in their baseline MADRS total score was 64.3%. Antidepressive treatment was associated with a reduction in the mean time required for recognition of a happy face (P \ 0.05). Conclusions: Patients with depression are slower to identify positive emotions but have a similar time to recognition of negative emotions as patients without depression. The greater time required for recognition of happiness distinguished the patients with depression from control subjects, and was also the only parameter that showed an improvement with antidepressant therapy, suggesting a specific relationship of this parameter with the depressive state.

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Background: The present study evaluated the cortical activation during emotional information recognition. Methods: The study group included 16 patients with depression, and 16 healthy subjects were enrolled as a control group. Patients received eight weeks of antidepressant therapy. Functional MRI evaluated the cortical activation twice in the patient group and once in the control group. The fMRI task processed the emotional information with face demonstration from the PennCNP test battery. Results: During the processing of emotional information, patients showed activation in the middle and the inferior frontal gyri, the fusiform gyrus, and the occipital cortex. After treatment, patients showed a significant decrease in the frontal cortex activation for negative face demonstration and no frontal activation for positive emotion recognition. The left superior temporal gyrus activation zone appeared in patients after treatment and in the control group. Healthy subjects showed more intense frontal cortex activation when processing neutral emotions and less when showing happy and sad faces. Activation zones in the amygdala and the insula and deactivation zones in the posterior cingulate cortex were revealed in the controls. Conclusion: This study confirms the hypothesis that anomalies in the processing of emotional stimuli can be a sign of a depressive disorder.

Cognitive disfunction in depressive disorders have become a relevant aim of research in recent years. At the same time, the question of the influence of psychopharmacological drugs on the cognitive functioning of patients with depression also retains its significance. The article presents the results of a prospective study of the effect of sertraline on cognitive functions in patients with nonpsychotic unipolar depressive disorders. The study included 36 patients who received sertraline monotherapy for at least 12 weeks. The dynamics of depressive symptoms was assessed by the MADRS and HAM-D scales. The study of cognitive functions included memory testing (memory for faces), attention (Landolt rings), reaction time (sensorimotor reaction), psychomotor (tapping test) and executive functions (Stroop test, stress test, reaction to a moving object) with the help of the computer psychodiagnostic complex «Multipsychometer-05». The cognitive profile of the studied patients was characterized mainly by deficit of executive and psychomotor functions. The index of psychomotor activity significantly correlated with the severity of depressive symptoms. The use of sertraline contributed significantly to the reduction of depressive symptoms, as well as to the improvement of almost all the studied parameters of the cognitive profile, including memory, attention, reaction rate, psychomotor and performance functions.