The relationship between cerebral blood flow velocity and attention and execution function in patients with major depressive episode / 中国神经精神疾病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To find out the cerebral blood flow velocity and its relationship with attention and execu?tion function in patients with major depressive episode. Methods A total of 70 patients with major depressive episode and 65 healthy controls were included. The 24 items Hamilton depression scale (HAMD-24) was adopted for patients' depressive symptoms assessment. The Cancellation Test (CT) and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) were adopted for cognitive function assessment. And the blood flow velocity of cerebral arteries were detected by transcranial Doppler ul?trasonography (TCD). Results Compared with the controls, the patients showed significantly slower average blood flow ve?locity in basilar artery, left middle cerebral artery, right middle cerebral artery, left anterior cerebral artery and right ante?rior cerebral artery (P<0.05). Compared with those in the controls, the net score of each stage and the total net score of CT were significantly lower in the patients, while the total number of responses, response errors, perseverative errors and the necessary response number to complete the first category of WCST were significantly higher (P<0.01). The blood flow velocity in the cerebral basilar artery (r=0.25), left middle cerebral artery (r=0.46), right middle cerebral artery (r=0.25) and right posterior cerebral artery (r=0.26) showed positive correlations with total net score of CT (P<0.05), and the cere?bral artery average blood flow velocity showed negative correlations with the total number of responses, response errors and perseverative errors of WCST in the patients (P<0.05). Conclusions Compared with healthy controls, patients with major depressive episode suffer from lower average cerebral artery blood flow velocity, bad attention and executive func?tion. The change of average cerebral artery blood flow velocity may be responsible for impaired cognitive function in epi?sode major depression patients.