Neuropsychological deficits in psychotic versus nonpsychotic unipolar depression

A broad range of neuropsychological function was compared in samples of you ng adult unipolar depressed inpatients with and without psychotic features. Consistent with expectations, the psychotic depressive group demonstrated a broad range of deficit and had more impaired performances than the nonpsy chotic group. Relevance of these data for hypotheses concerning psychotic d epression as a unique diagnostic entity is discussed. In the context of pre vious research, the current findings suggest that accounting for individual differences in depression may clarify discrepancies between earlier studie s of neuropsychological function in depression, and our understanding of th e mechanisms by which depression influences cognition may be refined.