Brain Activation Associated With Response to Psychotherapies for Late-Life Depression: A Task-Based fMRI Study.

Background: The course of late-life depression is associated with functioning of multiple brain networks. Understanding the brain mechanisms associated with response to psychotherapy can inform treatment development and a personalized treatment approach. This study examined how activation of key regions of the salience network, default mode network and reward systems is associated with response to psychotherapies for late-life depression.

Wisdom, Resilience, and Well-Being in Later Life.

As the numbers of older adults continue to increase globally, the need for facilitating healthy aging has become critical. While a physically healthy lifestyle, including exercise and diet, is important, recent research has highlighted a major impact of psychosocial determinants of health, such as resilience, wisdom, positive social connections, and mental well-being, on whole health. This article focuses on keeping the mind and brain healthy with psychosocially active aging.

Longitudinal trajectories of symptom change during antidepressant treatment among managed care patients with depression and anxiety.

Despite the high correlation between anxiety and depression, little remains known about the course of each condition when presenting concurrently. This study aimed to identify longitudinal patterns during antidepressant treatment in patients with depression and anxiety, and evaluate related factors associated with these patterns. By analyzing longitudinal self-report Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) scores that tracked courses of depression and anxiety over a three-month window among the 577 adult participants, six depression and six anxiety trajectory subgroups were computationally derived using group-based trajectory modeling.

Increasing Completion of Daily Patient-Reported Outcomes in Psychotherapies for Late-Life Depression through User-Centered Design.

Background:  Treatment of depressive symptoms in older adults is a growing public health concern. Collecting patient-reported outcomes (PROs) may facilitate efficiently scaling psychotherapy for older adults but user-specific tailoring is needed to improve completion.

Objectives:  This study investigates (1) the effect of updating PRO collection tools for middle-aged and older adults with depressive symptoms through a user-centered design process on user completion of PRO questions, (2) what sociodemographic factors correspond with participant completion, and (3) how completion of PRO questions change during the course of a psychotherapy intervention.