About the Special Issue

Patients with chronic anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, schizophrenia, or addictive disorders are likely to present cognitive alterations because of the evolution of the disease or due to specific drug treatments that may contribute to impaired memory consolidation. Little is known about the molecular mechanisms involved in memory and cognition in psychiatric disorders. The available pharmacological strategies rarely help improve memory and, in some situations, as we mentioned before, even the treatment itself can induce cognitive impairment. These alterations are difficult to assess in human and animal models because of their heterogeneous presentation and evolution.

Different brain areas have been implicated in cognition, modulating direct or indirect hippocampal functioning. Cognitive alterations are closely related to reduced neurogenesis and neuroplasticity in this brain region. Certain drugs improving mood alterations may increase neurogenesis, suggesting that emotional regulation may result critical for improvement or impairment of cognition.

Understanding the mechanism involved in cognitive alteration in mental illness is essential to identify a new therapeutic target to improve the quality of life for these patients. For this purpose, the main objective of this Special Issue is to collect studies (review and original works) exploring these cognitive alterations in humans and experimental animals of different neuropsychiatric conditions. We will consider articles studying several issues related to cognitive impairment: 1) The methods used to evaluate memory deficits in human and animal models, 2) Neurobiological mechanisms involved in the loss of memory, 3) Drugs that affect memory consolidation in psychiatry; 4) Potential treatments improving cognition and memory.

Keywords: cognition; memory loss; animal model; methodological evaluation; pharmacology; psychiatric disorders

Call for Papers