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Regional gray matter volume correlates with anxiety, apathy, and resilience in geriatric depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2023

Beatrix Krause-Sorio
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Prabha Siddarth
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Michaela M. Milillo
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Lisa A. Kilpatrick
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA G. Oppenheimer Family Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, Department of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Katherine L. Narr
Affiliation:
Department of Neurology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Helen Lavretsky*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA
*
Correspondence should be addressed to: Helen Lavretsky, Department of Psychiatry, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Behavior, University of California Los Angeles, 760 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA. Phone: +1 (310) 794-4619. Email: hlavretsky@mednet.ucla.edu.

Abstract

Objectives:

Geriatric depression (GD) is associated with significant medical comorbidity, cognitive impairment, brain atrophy, premature mortality, and suboptimal treatment response. While apathy and anxiety are common comorbidities, resilience is a protective factor. Understanding the relationships between brain morphometry, depression, and resilience in GD could inform clinical treatment. Only few studies have addressed gray matter volume (GMV) associations with mood and resilience.

Participants:

Forty-nine adults aged >60 years (38 women) with major depressive disorder undergoing concurrent antidepressant treatment participated in the study.

Measurements:

Anatomical T1-weighted scans, apathy, anxiety, and resilience data were collected. Freesurfer 6.0 was used to preprocess T1-weighted images and qdec to perform voxel-wise whole-brain analyses. Partial Spearman correlations controlling for age and sex tested the associations between clinical scores, and general linear models identified clusters of associations between GMV and clinical scores, with age and sex as covariates. Cluster correction and Monte-Carlo simulations were applied (corrected alpha = 0.05).

Results:

Greater depression severity was associated with greater anxiety (r = 0.53, p = 0.0001), lower resilience (r = −0.33, p = 0.03), and greater apathy (r = 0.39, p = 0.01). Greater GMV in widespread, partially overlapping clusters across the brain was associated with reduced anxiety and apathy, as well as increased resilience.

Conclusion:

Our results suggest that greater GMV in extended brain regions is a potential marker for resilience in GD, while GMV in more focal and overlapping regions may be markers for depression and anxiety. Interventions focused on improving symptoms in GD may seek to examine their effects on these brain regions.

Information

Type
Original Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
© International Psychogeriatric Association 2023
Figure 0

Table 1. Demographics and clinical variables

Figure 1

Figure 1. Greater GMV was associated with reduced anxiety. Six clusters across both hemispheres indicated an association between GMV and anxiety scores.

Figure 2

Figure 2. Greater GMV was associated with reduced apathy. There were seven clusters in which GMV was associated with apathy.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Greater GMV was associated with increased resilience. There were seven clusters in which GMV was associated with resilience scores.

Figure 4

Figure 4. Overlap between GMV clusters for anxiety, apathy, and resilience. Greater GMV was associated with lower anxiety (blue), apathy (red), and increased resilience (yellow) in various large regions of both hemispheres.

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