AccScience Publishing / JCBP / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/JCBP025130025
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REVIEW ARTICLE

Memory impairments in depression

Yaqing Wang1 ,  Hui Deng1 ,  Tiantian Wang1 ,  Hongliang Zhou2*
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1 Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
2 Department of Medical Psychology, The Affiliated Hospital of Jiangnan University, Wuxi, Jiangsu, China
JCBP, 025130025 https://doi.org/10.36922/JCBP025130025
Received: 27 May 2025 | Revised: 19 May 2025 | Accepted: 30 June 2025 | Published online: 18 July 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Depression is characterized by persistent depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure in previously enjoyable activities, recurrent thoughts of death, and physical and cognitive symptoms. Godlewska and Harmer’s cognitive neuropsychological theory posits that cognitive dysfunction constitutes a core pathophysiological feature of depression, manifested through negative cognitive bias, memory impairment, and executive dysfunction. Prior studies showed that depression impairs memory, correlating with the severity of depressive symptoms. The hippocampus and cortex critically mediate memory encoding, retrieval, activation, and consolidation. Neurally, depression involves reduced hippocampal activation, prefrontal executive control dysfunction, hypoactivity in emotion-regulating regions, diminished cingulate gyrus activity and connectivity, and amygdala abnormalities. Memory impairment is linked not only to depression but also to systemic inflammation from physical diseases, which may disrupt central nervous system function and contribute to cognitive deficits. To elucidate memory impairment mechanisms in depression and guide precision therapies for cognitive rehabilitation, in this review, we introduce the psychological model and measurement tasks of memory and discuss different types of memory impairment in depression.

Keywords
Memory
Impairment
Depression
Somatic diseases
Hippocampus
Funding
This work was financially supported by Wuxi Municipal Health Commission Major Project (No. Z202107) and Wuxi Taihu Talent Project (No. WXTTP 2021).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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Journal of Clinical and Basic Psychosomatics, Electronic ISSN: 2972-4414 Print ISSN: 3060-8562, Published by AccScience Publishing
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