Imagine you’re on a treasure hunt, searching for clues that will lead you to a hidden treasure. Well, scientists have been on a similar quest, trying to uncover the hidden connections between depressive symptoms and Alzheimer’s disease. In this study, researchers examined how depressive and anxiety symptoms are related to different biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease across different stages of the disease. They recruited healthy individuals, those with subjective cognitive decline (early stage), and cognitively impaired patients (later stage) on the Alzheimer’s continuum. The results revealed that depressive symptoms were higher in both groups with cognitive decline and impairment compared to the healthy controls. Interestingly, greater depressive symptoms were associated with higher levels of amyloid, a protein associated with Alzheimer’s, in those with subjective cognitive decline. On the other hand, in cognitively impaired patients, more depressive symptoms were linked to better cognition and glucose metabolism, as well as increased awareness of cognitive difficulties. Surprisingly, anxiety symptoms did not show any associations with brain integrity in any group. These findings underline the importance of identifying and treating depressive symptoms, especially in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. If you want to dive deeper into this exciting research, check out the full article!

BackgroundDepressive and anxiety symptoms are frequent in Alzheimer’s disease and associated with increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease in older adults. We sought to examine their relationships to Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers across the preclinical and clinical stages of the disease.MethodFifty-six healthy controls, 35 patients with subjective cognitive decline and 56 amyloid-positive cognitively impaired patients on the Alzheimer’s continuum completed depression and anxiety questionnaires, neuropsychological tests and neuroimaging assessments. We performed multiple regressions in each group separately to assess within group associations of depressive and anxiety symptoms with either cognition (global cognition and episodic memory) or neuroimaging data (gray matter volume, glucose metabolism and amyloid load).ResultsDepressive symptoms, but not anxiety, were higher in patients with subjective cognitive decline and cognitively impaired patients on the Alzheimer’s continuum compared to healthy controls. Greater depressive symptoms were associated with higher amyloid load in subjective cognitive decline patients, while they were related to higher cognition and glucose metabolism, and to better awareness of cognitive difficulties, in cognitively impaired patients on the Alzheimer’s continuum. In contrast, anxiety symptoms were not associated with brain integrity in any group.ConclusionThese data show that more depressive symptoms are associated with greater Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers in subjective cognitive decline patients, while they reflect better cognitive deficit awareness in cognitively impaired patients on the Alzheimer’s continuum. Our findings highlight the relevance of assessing and treating depressive symptoms in the preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

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