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Description: Depression is usually defined in terms of behavioural, emotional, social or thinking alterations, and neuropsychological changes are frequently unexplored. Among them, executive functions have a remarkable impact on remission, recurrence and wellbeing. This article reviews studies on executive functions from a cognitive neuroscience perspective, to better understand the mechanisms of executive processes (i.e., cognitive control, inhibition, mind shifting, decision making and problem solving) in depression, and to promote suitable therapeutical approaches. Serving to this purpose, a comprehensive literature search was conducted using major bibliographic databases in cognitive science and neuroscience. The study focus on experiments using electrophysiological techniques since they are non-invasive tools and present high temporal resolution. Results show a variety of brain components and cognitive domains that are impaired under depression, although further research may clarify controversies resulting from depression heterogeneity, demographic differences, and methodological approaches. In numerous studies, P3 amplitudes are diminished and latencies prolonged, indicating executive attentional dysfunction related to mind setting. Similarly, MMN registers decreased amplitudes and prolonged latency, reflecting difficulties for change detection and voluntary effort linked to mental shift. Contrastingly, depression shows increased N1 latencies related with discrimination, and a tendency for increased LDAEP amplitudes (difference between N1 and P2), that suggests difficulties in inhibitory control. Regarding feedback processing, the connection among ERN, Pe, ACC, and frontal regions, associated with error awareness and cognitive control, seem to be compromised under depression. And the CRN response is enhanced in depressive persons showing increased error monitoring. Lastly, the ability to interpret coherently the information value of the negative feedback, together with a propensity to commit more perseverative and non-perseverative errors, need to be further investigated. Depressive individuals commit both types of errors in more occasions than controls, what could reflects alterations of fronto-striatal networks, producing visual attention deficits and difficulties for inhibiting incoming information. FULL TEXT:https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/f5dhq