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Abstract:
Twenty individuals who had received a stereotactic subcaudate
psychosurgical intervention for chronic, treatment-resistant
depression, and controls performed a wide range of psychological
tests. Ten of the psychosurgery participants had recovered from
depression following surgery and 10 remained depressed. The tests
consisted of a standard neuropsychological battery with an emphasis
on executive and frontal functioning. In addition, there were a
number of tests of emotion processing, social processing and the
processing of future consequences, including the Bechara gambling
task. The aim of the study was to investigate whether success of
the operation in terms of recovery from depression was associated
with any deficits in psychological functioning in other domains.
The results revealed that the recovered-depressed group was more
impaired on some measures of frontal functioning than the depressed
group. Furthermore, the recovered-depressed group showed a specific
decision-making deficit on the Bechara gambling task in that there
were insensitive to the negative consequences of their choices. In
addition, all participants were impaired on certain measures of
emotional processing. The results indicate that certain cognitive
operations are implicated in the maintenance of depression and
suggest that these processes are compromised by psychosurgery and
that this may underlie its efficacy as a treatment.
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