Cognitive profile of major depression and dysthymia: Errors in vocal-acoustic tasks

Among affective disorders, dysthymia is considered as a separated pathology, although one part of its characteristic symptomatology coincides with some typical manifestations of mayor depression, complicating differential diagnosis between both entities. The study is focused on the cognitive performance analysis by using vocal-acoustic tasks. Sixty volunteers were divided in three groups: healthy subjects, major depression patients and persons with dysthymia. A vocal-acoustic protocol composed of three different cognitive processed level tasks was administered to all participants. Results showed significant different errors distributions between groups of patients suggesting that the cognitive processing in dysthymia and in mayor depression is qualitative different.