The correlation of cognitive dysfunction with serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor level in depression patients

Abstract

Objective To investigate the characteristics of cognitive dysfunction in patients with depression, and identify the correlation between cognitive dysfunction and serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor(BDNF) level. Methods All participants including 73 depressed patients and 71 healthy controls were received clinical and cognitive assessments at admission, the depression group was divided into two groups by the score of Beijing version of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA-BJ), one was depression with cognitive dysfunction group which had 36 cases, the other was depression without cognitive dysfunction group which had 37 cases.Concentration of BDNF was measured by the ELISA method. Results Cognitive impairments were found in numerous cognitive domains of depressed patients, including visuospatial and executive abilities, attention, delayed recall and orientation(P 0.05), and the levels were significantly lower than that in healthy people ((16.55±7.47)ng/ml, P 0.05). Conclusion Depression patients have cognitive dysfunction in numerous cognitive domains, including visuospatial and executive abilities, attention, delayed recall and orientation.Serum BDNF level is closely related with depression, while, it has no obvious relationship with cognition function in depression. Key words: Depression; Cognitive dysfunction; Brain-derived neurotrophic factor