Negative correlation between affective symptoms and prefrontal activation during a verbal fluency task: a near-infrared spectroscopy study.

Only a few studies have examined the relationships between affective symptoms, cognitive function (e.g. verbal fluency), quality of life (QOL), and brain activation in a nonclinical population.

Depressive symptoms and apathy are associated with psychomotor slowness and frontal activation.

Affective symptoms, such as depression and apathy, and cognitive dysfunction, such as psychomotor slowness, are known to have negative impacts on the quality of life (QOL) of patients with mental and physical diseases. However, the relationships among depressive symptoms, apathy, psychomotor slowness, and QOL in a non-clinical population are unclear. The aim of the present study was to assess these relationships and examine the underlying cortical mechanisms in a non-clinical population.