Influence of Affective States and Psychoactive Drugs on Verbal Learning and Memory

The authors found evidence of impaired performance on serial and free recall verbal learning tasks during depression and mania. Treatment with L-dopa and L-tryptophan significantly improved performance on these tasks, while imipramine, lithium carbonate, and alpha-methyl-para-tyrosine treatments had no effect. These results should be taken into account when using psychotherapeutic approaches designed to teach new response patterns to patients with affective disorders.