Regular Research ArticlesChange in Hippocampal Volume on Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Cognitive Decline Among Older Depressed and Nondepressed Subjects in the Neurocognitive Outcomes of Depression in the Elderly Study
Section snippets
Development of the NCODE Cohort
Beginning in November 1994, investigators at Duke University Medical Center began enrolling depressed patients aged 60 years and older in National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-sponsored Mental Health Clinical Research Center for the study of Depression in Later Life and into its longitudinal sister study. The latter study sought to examine neu-roimaging factors related to depression outcomes. A neuropsychological evaluation was added in 1997. In conjunction with the newly established Conte
RESULTS
Characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 1. In brief, compared with the nondepressed group, the depressed group was similar in age, race, and baseline MMSE score. A higher percent of depressives were men, and nondepressed individuals had slightly more education than the depressed group. There were no between-group differences in baseline total cerebral volume or left or right hippocampal volume. In terms of medications, patients were on a variety of antidepressant medications per our
CONCLUSIONS
In this study, we report two main findings. First, depressed older adults experience a greater decrease in left normalized hippocampal volume than nondepressed elders. This result remained significant after controlling for the effects of age, sex, and baseline left normalized hippocampal volume. For the right hippocampus, the result fell short of significance. Our second finding is that among older depressed patients, reduction in normalized hippocampal volumes from baseline to Year 2 were
References (36)
- et al.
Hippocampal volume in geriatric depression
Biol Psychiatry
(2000) - et al.
Persistence of cognitive impairment in geriatric patients following antidepressant treatment: a randomized, double-blind clinical trial with nortriptyline and paroxetine
J Psychiatr Res
(2003) - et al.
Hippocampal volume and incident dementia in geriatric depression
Am J Geriatr Psychiatry
(2002) - et al.
Increased hippocampal atrophy rates in AD over 6 months using serial MR imaging
Neurobiol Aging
(2008) - et al.
Mini-mental state. A practical method for grading the cognitive state of patients for the clinician
J Psychiatr Res
(1975) - et al.
Development of a semi-automated method for quantification of MRI gray and white matter lesions in geriatric subjects
Psychiatry Res
(2002) - et al.
Structural brain abnormalities in major depressive disorder: a selective review of recent MRI studies
J Affect Disord
(2009) - et al.
Stress and cognitive function
Curr Opin Neurobiol
(1995) - et al.
Perspectives on depression, mild cognitive impairment, and cognitive decline
Arch Gen Psychiatry
(2006) - et al.
Coexistence of lowered mood and cognitive impairment of elderly people in five birth cohorts
Aging (Milano)
(1999)
Medial temporal lobe atrophy and memory dysfunction as predictors for dementia in subjects with mild cognitive impairment
J Neurol
Prediction of AD with MRI-based hippocampal volume in mild cognitive impairment
Neurol
Brain morphomet-ric abnormalities in geriatric depression: long-term neurobiolog-ical effects of illness duration
Am J Psychiatry
Hippocampal volume change in depression: late- and early-onset illness compared
Br J Psychiatry
Reduced hippocampal volumes and memory loss in patients with early- and late-onset depression
Br J Psychiatry
Hippocampal atrophy in recurrent major depression
Proc Nat Acad Sci USA
Depression duration but not age predicts hippocampal volume loss in medically healthy women with recurrent major depression
J Neurosci
Untreated depression and hippocampal volume loss
Am J Psychiatry
Cited by (106)
Assessing sleep architecture and cognition in older adults with depressive symptoms attending a memory clinic
2024, Journal of Affective DisordersStructural MRI-Based Measures of Accelerated Brain Aging do not Moderate the Acute Antidepressant Response in Late-Life Depression
2022, American Journal of Geriatric PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :The hippocampus exhibits volume loss with normal aging and accelerated hippocampus atrophy is a marker of Alzheimer disease.17 Similar to younger or midlife depression, LLD is associated with smaller hippocampal volumes18,19 and greater reductions in hippocampal volume over time.20–22 However, while LLD is associated with elevated dementia risk,23 smaller hippocampal volumes in LLD are not necessarily associated with underlying Alzheimer disease neuropathology.24
Longitudinal association between depressive symptoms and cognitive decline among middle-aged and elderly population
2022, Journal of Affective DisordersDepression related cerebral pathology and its relationship with cognitive functioning: A systematic review
2019, Journal of Affective DisordersA bi-factor model of the Montgomery Åsberg depression rating scale and future cognitive impairments in older adults: A 6-year follow-up study
2019, Journal of Psychiatric Research
This work was supported by NIMH grants P50 MH060451, R01 MH054846, and K24 MH070027.