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©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Dec 19, 2025; 15(12): 111972
Published online Dec 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i12.111972
Published online Dec 19, 2025. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v15.i12.111972
Neural correlates of conditional reasoning dysfunction in major depression: An event-related potential study with the Wason selection task
Jia-Xv Li, Xin-Ping Li, Zhen-He Zhou, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Training Base of Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, Hubei Province, China
Mei-Chen Lu, Xiao-Hong Liu, Xue-Zheng Gao, Zhen-He Zhou, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China
Luo-An Wu, Wei Li, Yu Li, Department of Psychiatry, The Yixing Fifth People’s Hospital, Yixing 214200, Jiangsu Province, China
Hong-Liang Zhou, Department of Psychology, The Affiliated Hospital of Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China
Co-first authors: Jia-Xv Li and Mei-Chen Lu.
Co-corresponding authors: Zhen-He Zhou and Hong-Liang Zhou.
Author contributions: Zhou ZH and Zhou HL designed the study and contributed equally as co-corresponding authors; Li JX, Lu MC, Wu LA, Li W, Li Y, Gao XZ, Li XP, and Liu XH recruited participants and collected the data; Li JX and Lu MC contributed equally as co-first authors; Li JX, Lu MC, Zhou ZH and Zhou HL analyzed data and drafted the manuscript; all the authors contributed to the interpretation of the results, manuscript revision, and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Supported by Wuxi Taihu Talent Project, No. WXTTP 2021; and the General Scientific Research Program of Wuxi Municipal Health Commission, No. M202447.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Wuxi Mental Health Center (Approval No. WXMHCIRB2025 LLky013).
Informed consent statement: All participants enrolled into this study provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: Data used in this study can be available from the corresponding author upon request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Zhen-He Zhou, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, The Affiliated Mental Health Center of Jiangnan University, No. 156 Qianrong Road, Wuxi 214151, Jiangsu Province, China. zhouzh@jiangnan.edu.cn
Received: July 15, 2025
Revised: August 11, 2025
Accepted: September 10, 2025
Published online: December 19, 2025
Processing time: 136 Days and 0.4 Hours
Revised: August 11, 2025
Accepted: September 10, 2025
Published online: December 19, 2025
Processing time: 136 Days and 0.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: To our knowledge, this investigation represents the initial application of the Wason selection task to assess the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with conditional reasoning in patients with major depression (MD). The observed event-related potential differences between healthy controls and MD patients provide critical neurophysiological evidence for understanding the neural substrates of conditional reasoning and may guide targeted interventions for MD.