Depressed elderly may progress more rapidly to Alzheimer’s

ST. LOUIS—The combination of late-life depression and beta-amyloid deposition may lead to a quickening of neurodegeneration and progressive Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study presented during the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s 2014 Annual Meeting, which concludes today.

Previous research has shown that depression can have an adverse effect on brain anatomy and function, but for this retrospective study pulling international data from a worldwide dementia imaging database, researchers including Axel Rominger, MD, from the department of nuclear medicine at the University of Munich in Germany, have found a clear association between depression in the later stages of life and faster progression of Alzheimer’s.

“Our results clearly indicate that mild cognitively impaired subjects with depressive symptoms suffer from elevated amyloid-levels when compared with non-depressed individuals,” said Rominger in a press release. “The combination of elevated amyloid-levels and coexisting depressive symptoms constitute a patient population with a high risk for faster progression to Alzheimer’s disease.”

The research included data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database regarding 371 patients with mild cognitive impairment spanning 55 medical institutions who had been imaged with F-18 florbetapir PET and MRI. Scans clearly revealed that patients with both mild cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms had increased amyloid deposition compared to controls who were not depressed. Areas of significant tracer uptake included the frontal cortex and the anterior as well as posterior cingulate gyrus, which are both implicated in depression.

“Therapeutic options for Alzheimer’s disease are still limited and therefore the identification and understanding of contributing risk factors that influence the disease are crucial in ongoing research as they offer the possibilities for future medical intervention,” said co-authoring researcher Matthias Brendel.

Further research is needed to get a better understanding of what this link means in terms of causality and patient management.