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.

A digital intervention for cognitive deficits following COVID-19: a randomized clinical trial.

Post-COVID-19 cognitive deficits are common, persistent, and disabling. Evidence on effective treatments is limited. The goal of this study was to investigate the efficacy of a digital intervention to reduce cognitive and functional deficits in adults with persistent post-COVID-19 cognitive dysfunction.

Frontostriatal salience network expansion in individuals in depression.

Decades of neuroimaging studies have shown modest differences in brain structure and connectivity in depression, hindering mechanistic insights or the identification of risk factors for disease onset. Furthermore, whereas depression is episodic, few longitudinal neuroimaging studies exist, limiting understanding of mechanisms that drive mood-state transitions. The emerging field of precision functional mapping has used densely sampled longitudinal neuroimaging data to show behaviourally meaningful differences in brain network topography and connectivity between and in healthy individuals, but this approach has not been applied in depression.

Expansion of a frontostriatal salience network in individuals with depression.

Hundreds of neuroimaging studies spanning two decades have revealed differences in brain structure and functional connectivity in depression, but with modest effect sizes, complicating efforts to derive mechanistic pathophysiologic insights or develop biomarkers. Furthermore, although depression is a fundamentally episodic condition, few neuroimaging studies have taken a longitudinal approach, which is critical for understanding cause and effect and delineating mechanisms that drive mood state transitions over time. The emerging field of precision functional mapping using densely-sampled longitudinal neuroimaging data has revealed unexpected, functionally meaningful individual differences in brain network topology in healthy individuals, but these approaches have never been applied to individuals with depression.

Comparison of Functional and Structural Neural Network Features in Older Adults With Depression With vs Without Apathy and Association With Response to Escitalopram: Secondary Analysis of a Nonrandomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Apathy is prevalent among individuals with late-life depression and is associated with poor response to pharmacotherapy, including chronicity and disability. Elucidating brain networks associated with apathy and poor treatment outcomes can inform intervention development.

Objectives: To assess the brain network features of apathy among individuals with late-life depression and identify brain network abnormalities associated with poor antidepressant response.

Estimated Regional White Matter Hyperintensity Burden, Resting State Functional Connectivity, and Cognitive Functions in Older Adults.

Objective: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) are linked to deficits in cognitive functioning, including cognitive control and memory; however, the structural, and functional mechanisms are largely unknown. We investigated the relationship between estimated regional disruptions to white matter fiber tracts from WMH, resting state functional connectivity (RSFC), and cognitive functions in older adults.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Brain-based mechanisms of late-life depression: Implications for novel interventions.

Late-life depression (LLD) is a particularly debilitating illness. Older adults suffering from depression commonly experience poor outcomes in response to antidepressant treatments, medical comorbidities, and declines in daily functioning. This review aims to further our understanding of the brain network dysfunctions underlying LLD that contribute to disrupted cognitive and affective processes and corresponding clinical manifestations.

Late-life depression accentuates cognitive weaknesses in older adults with small vessel disease.

Neuroimaging features of small vessel disease (SVD) are highly prevalent in older adulthood and associated with significant variability in clinical symptoms, yet the factors predicting these symptom disparities are poorly understood. We employed a novel metric of SVD, peak width of skeletonized mean diffusivity (PSMD), to elucidate the relationship of late-life depression (LLD) to the cognitive presentation of vascular pathology. A total of 109 older adults without a diagnosis of a neurocognitive disorder were enrolled in the study; 44 with major depressive disorder and 65 age-matched controls.

Integrating Genetic and Genomic Analyses of Combined Health Data Across Ecotypes to Improve Disease Resistance in Indigenous African Chickens.

Poultry play an important role in the agriculture of many African countries. The majority of chickens in sub-Saharan Africa are indigenous, raised in villages under semi-scavenging conditions. Vaccinations and biosecurity measures rarely apply, and infectious diseases remain a major cause of mortality and reduced productivity.

Cognitive Control Network Homogeneity and Executive Functions in Late-Life Depression.

Background: Late-life depression is characterized by network abnormalities, especially within the cognitive control network. We used alternative functional connectivity approaches, regional homogeneity (ReHo) and network homogeneity, to investigate late-life depression functional homogeneity. We examined the association between cognitive control network homogeneity and executive functions.

GST-4-Dependent Suppression of Neurodegeneration in Models of Parkinson's and Machado-Joseph Disease by Rapeseed Pomace Extract Supplementation.

Genetic mutations and aging-associated oxidative damage underlie the onset and progression of neurodegenerative diseases, like Parkinson's disease (PD) and Machado-Joseph disease (MJD). Natural products derived from plants have been regarded as important sources of novel bioactive compounds to counteract neurodegeneration. Here, we tested the neuroprotective effect of an ethanolic extract of rapeseed pomace (RSP), a rapeseed (canola) oil production by-product, in models of MJD and PD.

The relative contributions of visual and semantic information in the neural representation of object categories.

Introduction: How do multiple sources of information interact to form mental representations of object categories? It is commonly held that object categories reflect the integration of perceptual features and semantic/knowledge-based features. To explore the relative contributions of these two sources of information, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify regions involved in the representation object categories with shared visual and/or semantic features.

Methods: Participants (N = 20) viewed a series of objects that varied in their degree of visual and semantic overlap in the MRI scanner.

The impact of white matter hyperintensities on the structural connectome in late-life depression: Relationship to executive functions.

Background: White matter hyperintensities (WMH) represent ischemic white matter damage in late-life depression (LLD) and are associated with cognitive control dysfunction. Understanding the impact of WMH on the structural connectivity of gray matter and the cognitive control correlates of WMH-related structural dysconnectivity can provide insight into the pathophysiology of LLD.

Methods: We compared WMH burden and performance on clinical measures of cognitive control in patients with LLD (N = 44) and a control group of non-depressed older adults (N = 59).

White matter abnormalities predict residual negative self-referential thinking following treatment of late-life depression with escitalopram: A preliminary study.

Background: Negative self-referential thinking is a common symptom of depression associated with poor treatment response. In late-life depression, white matter abnormalities may contribute to negative self-referential thoughts following antidepressant treatment. We investigated the association of fractional anisotropy (FA) in select regions of the negative valence system (NVS) with residual negative self-referential thoughts following treatment with escitalopram for late-life depression.

Reward learning impairment and avoidance and rumination responses at the end of Engage therapy of late-life depression.

Objectives: This study examined the association between reward processing, as measured by performance on the probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) task and avoidance/rumination in depressed older adults treated with Engage, a psychotherapy that uses "reward exposure" to increase behavioral activation.

Methods: Thirty older adults with major depression received 9 weeks of Engage treatment. At baseline and treatment end, the 24-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used to assess depression severity and the Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS) to assess behavioral activation and avoidance/rumination.

Age-Related Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Effects on Executive Function in Depression: A Systematic Review.

Objective: The aims of the current review were to: 1) examine whether the rTMS effects on executive function increase as age advances; 2) to examine the potential of rTMS to remediate executive function in older depressed patients; and 3) to assess the relationship between the executive function and mood benefits from rTMS in depression.

Methods: Randomized or matched-groups, blind, sham-controlled studies (12 studies, 347 participants) on excitatory rTMS applied to left DLPFC in depression were reviewed.

Results: A series of meta-regressions found no evidence of greater rTMS effects on executive functions as age advances.

"Engage" therapy: Prediction of change of late-life major depression.

Objective: Engage grew out of the need for streamlined psychotherapies that can be accurately used by community therapists in late-life depression. Engage was based on the view that dysfunction of reward networks is the principal mechanism mediating depressive symptoms. Accordingly, Engage uses "reward exposure" (exposure to meaningful activities) and assumes that repeated activation of reward networks will normalize these systems.

Improvement in Depression is Associated with Improvement in Cognition in Late-Life Psychotic Depression.

Objective: To characterize cognitive function at baseline and investigate the relationship between change in cognition, depression, and psychosis after treatment among older adults with major depressive disorder with psychotic features.

Methods: This was a secondary analysis of a double-blind, randomized, controlled treatment trial at inpatient and outpatient settings at four academic health centers on "Young Old" (aged 60-71 years, N = 71) and "Older" (aged 72-86 years, N = 71) participants diagnosed with psychotic depression. Olanzapine plus sertraline or olanzapine plus placebo were given until week 12 or termination.

Why it's easier to remember seeing a face we already know than one we don't: preexisting memory representations facilitate memory formation.

In two experiments, we provided support for the hypothesis that stimuli with preexisting memory representations (e.g., famous faces) are easier to associate to their encoding context than are stimuli that lack long-term memory representations (e.