Citation

Droppa K, Karim HT, Tudorascu DL, Karp JF, Reynolds CF, Aizenstein HJ, Butters MA. J. Psychiatr. Res. 2017; 95: 129-134.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA. Electronic address: buttersma@upmc.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jpsychires.2017.08.002

PMID

28843842

Abstract

Late-life depression (LLD) is associated with cognitive impairments and reduced gray matter volume (GMV); however the mechanisms underlying this association are not well understood. The goal of this study was to characterize changes in depression severity, cognitive function, and brain structure associated with pharmacologic antidepressant treatment for LLD. We administered a detailed neurocognitive battery and conducted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on 26 individuals with LLD, pre-/post-a 12-week treatment trial with venlafaxine. After calculating changes in cognitive performance, GMV, and depression severity, we calculated Pearson's correlations, performed permutation testing, and false discovery rate correction. We found that loss of GMV over 12 weeks in the superior orbital frontal gyrus was associated with less improvement in depression severity and that increased GMV in the same was associated with greater improvement in depression severity. We detected no associations between changes in cognitive performance and improvements in either depressive symptoms or changes in GMV.

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Cognition; Late-life depression; MRI