The available evidence suggests the early changes in cognition may predict treatment response in individuals with MDD .
The results depict an emerging trend towards early changes in facial emotion recognition ( i.e. , a hot cognitive process ) as a predictor of treatment outcome .
Conclusion : The identification of reliable early treatment predictors of antidepressant response would be clinical ly significant , enabling clinicians to more accurately evaluate the efficacy of selected treatment avenues .
HIGHLIGHTSCognitive dysfunction is a principal feature and determinant of health outcome in MDD.Cognitive changes have shown to occur prior to improvements in mood symptoms .
Early changes in emotional processing may predict treatment response in MDD
Background : Despite the widespread use of antidepressants in clinical practice , the current trial‐ and ‐error approach to medication selection contributes to treatment failure and underscores the need to identify reliable predictors of antidepressant response .
Since changes in measures of cognition have been reported to occur early in treatment and prior to improvements in overall mood symptoms , the present review aims to determine whether early changes in measures of cognition can predict response in individuals with MDD .
The effect of serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants on face emotion processing in depressed patients.
BACKGROUND In healthy volunteers , exposure to antidepressants increases the recognition of positive face emotions and decreases recognition of negative emotions . It has been proposed that this may underlie therapeutic effects of antidepressants , but to date this has not been tested in clinical population s. METHOD Recognition of facial emotions was measured at baseline ( N=108 ) and after 2 ( N=59 ) and 6 weeks ( N=69 ) of treatment in depressed primary care patients who had been r and omised to treatment with either citalopram ( SSRI ) or reboxetine ( NaRI ) in an open-label study . Changes in emotional processing were compared to clinical outcome after 6 weeks of treatment . RESULTS Significant increases in recognition accuracy of disgust , happiness and surprise occurred by two-weeks of treatment with both antidepressants , and did not further change at 6 weeks . There was a significant correlation between the increased accuracy in recognition of happy faces over the first two-weeks of treatment and the clinical improvement after six-weeks of treatment . LIMITATIONS There was no control group and changes over time may be due to practice effects . CONCLUSIONS Antidepressants altered emotional processing in depressed patients with some similarities to the effects seen in healthy volunteers . The largest effect seen was increased recognition of disgust that may be specific to depressed patients . The correlation between increased accurate recognition of happy faces at two-weeks of treatment and clinical outcome at six-weeks of treatment suggests that early changes in emotional processing may underlie clinical response to antidepressants
The available evidence suggests the early changes in cognition may predict treatment response in individuals with MDD .
The results depict an emerging trend towards early changes in facial emotion recognition ( i.e. , a hot cognitive process ) as a predictor of treatment outcome .
Conclusion : The identification of reliable early treatment predictors of antidepressant response would be clinical ly significant , enabling clinicians to more accurately evaluate the efficacy of selected treatment avenues .
HIGHLIGHTSCognitive dysfunction is a principal feature and determinant of health outcome in MDD.Cognitive changes have shown to occur prior to improvements in mood symptoms .
Early changes in emotional processing may predict treatment response in MDD
Background : Despite the widespread use of antidepressants in clinical practice , the current trial‐ and ‐error approach to medication selection contributes to treatment failure and underscores the need to identify reliable predictors of antidepressant response .
Since changes in measures of cognition have been reported to occur early in treatment and prior to improvements in overall mood symptoms , the present review aims to determine whether early changes in measures of cognition can predict response in individuals with MDD .