Depression in elderly people can include symptoms such as memory loss, making it hard to distinguish from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia. A signature of Alzheimer’s is accumulation of a protein called amyloid beta (Aβ) in the brain, which can be detected with brain-imaging technology.
Researchers had suspected that Aβ deposits might also underlie the cognitive decline seen in older people with depression, however a new study from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has found that abnormal Aβ deposits were actually found in fewer older adults with major depression compared to non-depressed control subjects. The study, appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.
John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said of the work: “In the elderly, depression can sometimes be difficult to tease apart from…
