A follow-up study of first episode major depressive disorder. Impairment in inhibition and semantic fluency—potential predictors for relapse?

Abstract

There was a significant decrease in depression severity score from the acute phase, showing that most of the patients were in remission in the follow-up assessment. RESULTS showed a sustained impairment in inhibition and semantic fluency in the patient group. However, the performance in inhibition was more severe when an additional requirement of mental flexibility was included. There were no group differences in the other EF functions measured. Further, patients with a relapse in the course of 1 year performed significantly poorer in inhibition/switching at inclusion compared to patients that did not relapse and the CG. This relationship was not found for semantic fluency. Poor performance in inhibition and semantic fluency are prolonged despite symptom reduction in patients with a first episode of MDD. Moreover, although based on a small sample of patients, the present study showed that there may be a relationship between impaired ability in the EF of inhibition/switching and vulnerability for the experience of relapse.