Association between increased serum interleukin-6 levels and sustained attention deficits in patients with major depressive disorder

Background The pathophysiology of cognitive impairment in patients with the major depressive disorder (MDD) may involve neuroinflammation mediated by cytokines. Objective The aim of this study was to examine the serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels, sustained attention, and their association in patients with MDD. Methods Thirty patients with MDD and 30 healthy controls were enrolled in this case-control study. Sustained attention was measured using the Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP) task in the Cambridge Neuropsychological Tests Automated Battery. The serum IL-6 levels of all subjects were assessed by sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Results There were significant differences in the log 10 RVP total hits, log 10 RVP total misses, and log 10 RVP mean latency between patients with MDD and healthy controls ( F = 6.04, p = 0.017; F = 19.77, p F = 14.42, p 10 IL-6 were significantly higher in patients with MDD than in healthy controls ( F = 192.27, p 10 IL-6 levels were also positively correlated with the log 10 RVP mean latency in patients with MDD ( r = 0.45, p = 0.013). A further stepwise multivariate regression analysis indicated that the log 10 IL-6 levels were significantly associated with the log 10 RVP mean latency in patients with MDD ( β = 0.31, t = 2.41, p = 0.025). Conclusions Our data suggested that increased IL-6 levels were associated with the psychopathology of MDD, and that abnormal IL-6 levels were implicated in the impairment of sustained attention in patients with MDD.