Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a serious illness associated with considerable morbidity,
risk of suicide and adverse social consequences (Montgomery et al., 1994a). Cognitive
impairment is one of the three major symptom areas of MDD. Specifically, memory impairment
and concerns are one of the most commonly reported complaints in MDD. While antidepressant
(AD) treatments vary a great deal in their propensity to cause cognitive impairment, there
remains a paucity of empirical evidence on the effects of AD treatment on neuropsychological
indices of memory functioning in non-geriatric depressed individuals. Hence, comparative
effects of various AD drugs on memory functioning remain unclear.The aim of this study is to
evaluate multiple aspects of memory functioning (short-term, working memory, verbal,
non-verbal, spatial and prospective memory) of MDD patients before and after 8 weeks of
antidepressant treatment with bupropion XL or escitalopram.