ArticleAlzheimer's research & therapy2025
Depressive symptoms in older adults are associated with changes in stress-related markers, functional connectivity and brain volume.
Article in Alzheimer's research & therapy, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02977819 (Interventional Study in Cognitively Intact Seniors Aiming to Assess the Effects of Meditation Training and Foreign Language Learning on Behavioral, Biological and Neuroimaging Measures), which is not on this map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Interventional Study in Cognitively Intact Seniors Aiming to Assess the Effects of Meditation Training and Foreign Language Learning on Behavioral, Biological and Neuroimaging Measures
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reducing Disparities and Improving Mental Health for Transgender Persons.Alpha psychiatry · 2026Article
- Circulating Stress Hormones, Brain Health, and Cognition in Healthy Older Adults: Cross-Sectional Findings and Sex Differences in Age-Well.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2025Article
- The Cortisol Effect on the NO/cGMP Pathway.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSubclinical depressive symptoms increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD). The neurobiological mechanisms underlying this link may involve stress system dysfunction, notably related to the hippocampus which is particularly sensitive to AD. We aimed to investigate the links between blood stress markers and changes in brain regions involved in the stress response in older adults with or without subclinical depressive symptoms.
methodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted using baseline data from the Age-Well trial. Cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults with (DepS; n = 73) or without (NoDepS; n = 58) subclinical depressive symptoms (defined using the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale) were included in the analyses. Blood cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine were measured; as well as the resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) between, and gray matter (GM) volume of, the hypothalamus, hippocampus and hippocampal subfields. Blood stress markers levels and neuroimaging measures were compared between groups; then regression analyses were conducted between these measures.
resultsDepS participants showed higher plasma epinephrine levels, which was associated with greater rs-FC between the CA1 and Subiculum hippocampal subfields and the hypothalamus. Lower GM volume in the CA1 and DG/CA2-3-4 subfields was also found in DepS. No between-group differences were observed for blood cortisol and norepinephrine.
conclusionsOur findings show that subclinical depressive symptoms are associated with increased sympatho-adrenomedullary axis activity, together with lower GM volume in a hippocampal subfield (i.e., CA1) particularly sensitive to AD. While causation cannot be inferred, these results suggest that screening and treating subclinical depressive symptoms in CU older adults could reduce AD risk.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02977819, Registration Date: 2016-11-25.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.