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Neuropsychological impairment: the disturbed effect of self-processing in patients with major depressive disorder

  • Article
  • Psychological & Cognitive Sciences
  • Published:
Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

Neuropsychological impairment has long been established as a fundamental characteristic of depression, but a generally accepted, specific pattern of neuropsychological impairment has not been summarized. In this study, we examined the classic neuropsychological paradigm of self-face recognition, to explore whether the self was impaired in major depressive disorder (MDD). Eighteen MDD patients and 20 healthy subjects were recruited to participate in this study. By using a face morphing technique, we measured the size of processing bias in MDD patients during different face discrimination tasks relative to controls. Results of analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a significant main effect of Group (F (1, 36) = 7.388, P = 0.01). Subsequent independent t-tests further revealed that self bias (t = 2.636, P = 0.012) and self-recognition bias (t = 2.190, P = 0.035) observed in self-famous task and self-stranger task respectively for patients were significantly greater than that for controls. Both self-processing and self-recognition were impaired in patients with MDD, indicating that MDD individuals might exist level of self-abnormalities. These findings provide a new perspective for further study on the etiological and pathological mechanisms of MDD.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Beijing Education Committee Funds (1102013501). The authors thank all the participants for their assistance in the study.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100088, China

    Shanshan Liu, Xin Ma, Mengya Yin, Hong Zhu & Hongxiao Jia

  2. Center of Schizophrenia, Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing, 100088, China

    Shanshan Liu, Xin Ma, Mengya Yin, Hong Zhu & Hongxiao Jia

  3. Heilongjiang Shenzhi Hospital, Heilongjiang University of Chinese Medicine, Harbin, 150036, China

    Yonghou Zhao

  4. Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, 3052, Australia

    Nelson Barnaby

  5. State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Jia Liu & Hongxiao Jia

Authors
  1. Shanshan Liu
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  2. Xin Ma
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  3. Mengya Yin
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  4. Hong Zhu
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  5. Yonghou Zhao
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  6. Nelson Barnaby
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  7. Jia Liu
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  8. Hongxiao Jia
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hongxiao Jia.

Additional information

Shanshan Liu and Xin Ma contributed equally to this work.

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Liu, S., Ma, X., Yin, M. et al. Neuropsychological impairment: the disturbed effect of self-processing in patients with major depressive disorder. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 3595–3601 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0198-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0198-5

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