Effects of antidepressant treatment on neural correlates of emotional and neutral declarative verbal memory in depression

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: J. Douglas Bremner, Emory University; Meena Vythilingam, National Institute of Mental Health; Eric Vermetten, Emory University; Dennis S. Charney, National Institute of Mental Health
• Language: English
• Date: 2007-08
• Publisher: Elsevier: 12 months
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 Generic
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016%2Fj.jad.2006.10.028
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Journal of Affective Disorders
• ISSN: 0165-0327
• Volume: 101
• Issue: 1-3
• Start Page: 99
• End Page: 111
• Grant/Funding Information: This study was supported by the National Alliance for Research in Schizophrenia and Affective Disorders (NARSAD) Young Investigator Award and NIMH R01 #1R01MH56120 to Dr Bremner, the National Center for PTSD grant and a Veterans Administration Career Development Award grant to Dr. Bremner.
• Keywords: Frontal cortex; Depression; PET; Memory; Cingulate
• Research Categories: Psychology, Behavioral

Abstract

Background Multiple studies have documented deficits in verbal declarative memory function in depression that improve with resolution of symptoms; imaging studies show deficits in anterior cingulate function in depression, a brain area that mediates memory. No studies to date have examined neural correlates of emotionally valenced declarative memory using affectively negative (sad) verbal material that is clinically relevant to understanding depression. Also no studies have examined the effects of treatment on neural correlates of verbal declarative memory. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of treatment with antidepressants on verbal declarative memory in patients with depression. Methods Subjects with (N =18) and without (N=9) mid-life major depression underwent positron emission tomography (PET) imaging during verbal declarative memory tasks with both neutral paragraph encoding compared to a control condition, and emotional (sad) word pair retrieval compared to a control condition. Imaging was repeated in 13 subjects with depression after treatment with antidepressants. Results Patients with untreated depression had a failure of anterior cingulate activation relative to controls during retrieval of emotional word pairs. Antidepressant treatment resulted in increased anterior cingulate function compared to the untreated baseline for both neutral and emotional declarative memory. Limitations Limitations include a small sample size and variety of antidepressants used. Conclusions These results are consistent with alterations in anterior cingulate function that are reversible with treatment in patients with depression. These findings may have implications for understanding the mechanism of action of antidepressants in the treatment of depression.