Cognitive improvement with treatment of depression following mild traumatic brain injury

The authors examined the effect of antidepressant treatment on cognitive pe rformances in people with mild traumatic brain injury. An 8-week nonrandomi zed, single-blind placebo run-in trial of sertraline was completed and neur opsychological testing measures were compared before and after the treatmen t trial. Results showed improvements in psychomotor speed, recent verbal me mory, recent visual memory, and general cognitive efficiency. Improvements were also seen in self-perception of cognitive symptomatology. it appears t hat successful depression treatment resulted in significant alleviation of cognitive impairments, which may not have been accounted for by natural rec overy alone.