Electrophysiological Evidence for a Syntactic but Not a Semantic Deficit in Patients with Major Depression

Abstract

Cognitive deficits are common in patients with major depression. The present study investigated whether these impairments also comprise language processes such as sentence comprehension. We studied four language-related evoked potentials (early left anterior negativity [ELAN], N400, left anterior negativity [LAN], and P600) in 14 patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) in partial remission and 14 matched healthy controls using a sentence paradigm with correct, semantic mismatching, and syntactic mismatching sentences. In contrast to controls, patients showed no significant P600 effect when comparing syntactic mismatching and correct sentences. No group differences could be observed for the ELAN, N400, and LAN components. The missing P600 effect may indicate deficits in the cognitive domain of language processing in depressive patients or impairment of a more general process to detect deviances from regularities. How this result integrates into the concept of a general cognitive deficit in major depression remains a goal for future studies.