Neuropsychological correlates of social anxiety

INTRODUCTION: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is a psychiatric condition severely impacting patients' daily lives and potentially leading to isolation. Among all anxiety disorders, SAD has the lowest remission rate and an estimated lifetime prevalence of 12% constituting a significant burden on patients and health care institutions. Cognitive impairments in psychiatric disorders are known to impact clinical interventions and are supposed to constitute an important maintenance factor that should be treated. However, to date, the exact neuropsychological profile of SAD remains unclear. Therefore, we conducted the present review aimed at summarizing the cognitive functioning of SAD patients and their differences from healthy controls.EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: Web of Science and PubMed databases were searched to identify studies that used neuropsychological tools to assess non-affective cognition in SAD adult patients. After thorough research, we included 14 studies examining the cognitive status of SAD patients. A wide variety of cognitive tests were used to evaluate patients' cognitive functioning.EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: Results indicate that patients with SAD exhibit significant alterations in memory, executive functioning, and attention, possibly constituting maintenance factors. However, several limitations should be considered when interpreting the results of our review including the absence of longitudinal studies, the heterogeneity of the tests and the absence of secondary variables that could enlighten the nature of the cognitive deficits of SAD (i.e., neurobiological markers, clinical and quality of life variables).CONCLUSIONS: Our review suggests that SAD patients are characterized by memory and executive functioning alterations, possibly constituting maintenance factors of the disorder. Future studies are warranted, exploring the impact of these alterations on patients' daily lives and developing cognitive enhancing interventions tailored for this condition.