Executive functions in non-suicidal self-injury comorbid first-episode and drug-naïve depression among adolescents

Yanni Wang; Yue Zhou; Guohua Li; Peiwu Qin; Jiesi Wang; Ling Qi; Linling Li; Yang Wang; Jianhong Wang; Junchang Li; Zhen Liang; Yongjie Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115476

Executive functions in non-suicidal self-injury comorbid first-episode and drug-naïve depression among adolescents

Psychiatry Res. 2023 Oct:328:115476. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115476. Epub 2023 Sep 10.

Authors

Yanni Wang¹, Yue Zhou¹, Guohua Li², Peiwu Qin³, Jiesi Wang⁴, Ling Qi⁵, Linling Li⁶, Yang Wang⁷, Jianhong Wang², Junchang Li², Zhen Liang⁶, Yongjie Zhou⁸

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Health, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
² Shenzhen Mental Health Center, Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen, China.
³ Tsinghua Shenzhen international graduate school, Shenzhen, China.
⁴ CAS Key Laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
⁵ School of Health Science and Nursing, Wuhan Polytechnic University, Wuhan, China.
⁶ School of Biomedical Engineering, Health Science Center, Shenzhen University, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Biomedical Measurements and Ultrasound Imaging Shenzhen, China.
⁷ College of Management, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China.
⁸ Shenzhen Mental Health Center, Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen, China. Electronic address: qingzhu1108@126.com.

PMID: 37708804
DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2023.115476

Abstract

Executive functions(EFs) may be associated with the emergence of non-suicidal self-injury(NSSI) due to their role as behavior controllers. EFs includes three core cognitive processes: inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility(i.e. the ability to selectively alter cognitive strategies to generate appropriate behavior in the changing environment). This study aimed to systematically explore the three core EFs in depressed adolescents with NSSI. The data was obtained from the baseline data of the Chinese adolescent depression Cohort. The adolescents underwent cognitive assessments to yield domain-specific scores in EFs using the Digit Span Backward test(DSB), the Stroop Color-word interference test- color-word condition(Stroop-CW), and the Wisconsin Card Sorting tests(WCST). The significant differences in WCST scores were found between the NSSI group and the non-NSSI group. NSSI frequency was moderately positively correlated with total errors and negatively correlated with the number of categories completed. The number of categories completed in the "≥200″ NSSI frequency group was significantly lower than that in the "≤10″ NSSI group. The current findings suggested that depressed adolescents who had engaged in NSSI have poorer cognitive flexibility performance compared to adolescents without NSSI. As the frequency of NSSI increased, cognitive flexibility might become worse. These results provide evidence of a connection between executive dysfunctions and NSSI in depressed adolescents.

Keywords: Adolescent; Cognitive flexibility; Depression; Executive function; Non-suicidal self-injury.