Current psychiatric literature presents only little information on the possibilities of infl uencing cognitive defi ciency in patients suffering from depressive disorders. If any, works addressing the issue are characterised by considerable methodological diversity and recovery is defi ned in different ways, different neuropsychological tests and different therapeutic approaches including electroconvulsion are used. In order to assess cognitive defi ciency in depression, we created a set of neuropsychological tests. Cognitive functions of three depressive patients were examined. In these three patients the inhibitory form of depression was diagnosed and milnaciprane therapy started. The level of the cognitive functions under analysis as well as clinical symptoms measured on the Hamilton scale for depression were evaluated prior to and after four-week antidepressant therapy. The milnacipran therapy succeeded, leading above all to an improvement of the psychomotor rate and memory functions and a trend towards an improvement of the originally defi cient higher executive functions was observed, too. Although the number of patients analysed does not allow us to generalise the results, they can nevertheless be regarded as supporting the idea of association of cognitive defi ciency with depressive disorders.

        Key words: cognitive functions, cognitive defi cit, depression, neuropsychological assessment.