Cognition in Mood Disorders

Abstract

Mood disorders are common, complex, and one of the main causes of morbidity worldwide (1). There has been an increasing recognition that cognitive dysfunction is a central aspect of most mood disorders, as well as being closely related to the functional impairment that these disorders commonly cause (2, 3). Therefore, appropriate assessment and management of cognitive impairment(s) in mood disorders is important for the optimal treatment of these disorders more broadly. Research in these areas is ongoing and has the potential to improve our understanding of the neurobiological and neuropsychological mechanisms underpinning cognitive dysfunction in affective illness. In addition, developing tools to measure cognitive deficits more objectively, may augment the diagnosis of affective disorder and support current, and future efforts, to improve the classification of psychological symptoms and processes in psychiatry (4). This could allow for the identification of patterns of cognitive deficits which may be more amenable to certain treatments or may be of prognostic utility. In this editorial, we seek to summarize and organize the research literature published in this special Research Topic — Cognition in Mood Disorders. In this special edition, research papers published within this topic will be discussed within the following headings: the neurobiology of cognition, experimental models for understanding cognition, potential predictive cognitive markers, and the assessment and management of cognitive dysfunction, in mood disorders.