Executive functions and P300 latency in elderly depressed patients and control subjects

The authors asked whether impaired executive functioning and long P300 latency are related dysfunctions and whether they are associated with geriatric depression. A group of 25 elderly depressed patients without dementia and 20 control subjects were assessed on tasks of fluency, initiation and perseveration, the Stroop task, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) perseverative error score, and P300 latency. The groups' performance differed significantly on these tasks and in P300 latency. Longer latency was associated with poorer performance in both groups on all measures except WCST perseverative errors. Regardless of patients' depression status, increased P300 latency predicts poorer performance on executive function tasks requiring speeded performance.