Cognitive dysfunction in depression has become a topic of recent interest as the field has increasingly recognized that these deficits impede functional recovery and are independent of the emotional disturbances 29,30. Patients with MDD frequently exhibit difficulty with attention 31, information processing 32, working memory 33 and executive function 34. It should be stressed that these deficits are not uniformly present in all depressed patients as some abnormalities have been reported in specific MDD subgroups. However, persistence of these deficits despite improvement in mood after antidepressant treatment 35,36 calls for efforts to understand how cognitive dysfunction is intertwined with depression, and to develop treatments that specifically
