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Neuroanatomical correlates of apathy in late-life depression and antidepressant treatment response.

ABSTRACT: Apathy is a prominent feature of geriatric depression that predicts poor clinical outcomes and hinders depression treatment. Yet little is known about the neurobiology and treatment of apathy in late-life depression. This study examined apathy prevalence in a clinical sample of depressed elderly, response of apathy to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment, and neuroanatomical correlates that distinguished responders from non-responders and healthy controls.Participants included 45 non-demented, elderly with major depression and 43 elderly comparison individuals. After a 2-week single-blind placebo period, depressed participants received escitalopram 10mg daily for 12 weeks. The Apathy Evaluation Scale (AES) and 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) were administered at baseline and 12 weeks. MRI scans were acquired at baseline for concurrent structural and diffusion tensor imaging of anterior cingulate gray matter and associated white matter tracts.35.5% of depressed patients suffered from apathy. This declined to 15.6% (p<0.1) following treatment, but 43% of initial sufferers continued to report significant apathy. Improvement of apathy with SSRI was independent of change in depression but correlated with larger left posterior subgenual cingulate volumes and greater fractional anisotropy of left uncinate fasciculi.Modest sample size, no placebo control, post-hoc secondary analysis, use of 1.5T MRI scannerWhile prevalent in geriatric depression, apathy is separable from depression with regards to medication response. Structural abnormalities of the posterior subgenual cingulate and uncinate fasciculus may perpetuate apathetic states by interfering with prefrontal cortical recruitment of limbic activity essential to motivated behavior.

SUBMITTER: Yuen GS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4096713 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neuroanatomical correlates of apathy in late-life depression and antidepressant treatment response.

Yuen Genevieve S GS Gunning Faith M FM Woods Eric E Klimstra Sibel A SA Hoptman Matthew J MJ Alexopoulos George S GS

Journal of affective disorders 20140522

<h4>Background</h4>Apathy is a prominent feature of geriatric depression that predicts poor clinical outcomes and hinders depression treatment. Yet little is known about the neurobiology and treatment of apathy in late-life depression. This study examined apathy prevalence in a clinical sample of depressed elderly, response of apathy to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment, and neuroanatomical correlates that distinguished responders from non-responders and healthy controls.<h ...[more]

PMID: 25012429

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Project description:Late-life depression frequently co-occurs with cognitive impairment. To inform clinical management of these conditions, we examined the hypotheses that, relative to cognitively normal elders meeting DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder, those with cognitive impairment would require greater intensity of pharmacotherapy to reach criteria for antidepressant response and would take longer to respond.Using data from the MTLD-3 study, we conducted a series of secondary analyses examining the implications of cognitive impairment for short-term, open-trial pharmacotherapy of late-life depression (major depressive disorder in individuals 65 years and older). The treatment algorithm consisted of 3 steps: initial treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), a switch to a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) if the patient did not respond, and addition of an atypical antipsychotic if the patient did not respond to the SNRI. The first subject entered the protocol in April 2004, and the last subject exited in September 2009. We examined data for participants who completed the acute phase of MTLD-3 as responders and received a cognitive diagnosis (N = 153) based on National Alzheimer's Coordinating Center (NACC) Uniform Data Set criteria. We divided participants into 3 groups on the basis of NACC cognitive diagnosis: no cognitive disorder (n = 74), mild cognitive impairment (n = 60), and dementia (n = 19). For each group, we calculated the proportion of participants requiring first- (SSRI), second- (SNRI), or third-step (add-on atypical antipsychotic) treatment to meet criteria for response (17-Item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale score ? 10 for 3 consecutive weeks). We compared time to response across groups and correlates of nonresponse.The 3 groups did not differ in intensity of pharmacotherapy (P = .68) or time to response (P = .84). Nonresponse was more strongly correlated with longer major depressive episode duration (P = .0015), presence of recurrent depression (P = .002), and younger current age (P = .047), rather than cognitive status (P = .61).Cognitive status does not appear to impact short-term pharmacotherapy response variability in individuals whose depression responds to treatment with open-trial antidepressants delivered in a supportive, university-based medication clinic.

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Neuroanatomical correlates of apathy in late-life depression and antidepressant treatment response.

Publications

Neuroanatomical correlates of apathy in late-life depression and antidepressant treatment response.

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