Depression Treatment: Organic Bases of Late-Life Depression: A Critical Update.

Organic bases of late-life depression: a critical update.

Filed under: Depression Treatment

J Neural Transm. 2013 Jan 25;
Jellinger KA

Late-life depression (LLD) is frequently associated with cognitive impairment and increases the risk of subsequent dementia. Cerebrovascular disease, deep white matter lesions, Alzheimer disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) have all been hypothesized to contribute to this increased risk, and a host of studies have looked at the interplay between cerebrovascular disease and LLD. This has resulted in new concepts of LLD, such as “vascular depression”, but despite multiple magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in this field, the relationship between structural changes in human brain and LLD is still controversial. While pathological findings of suicide in some elderly persons revealed multiple lacunes, small vessel cerebrovascular disease, AD-related lesions or multiple neurodegenerative pathologies, recent autopsy data challenged the role of subcortical lacunes and white matter lesions as major morphological substrates of depressive symptoms as well as poorer executive function and memory. Several neuropathological studies, including a personal clinico-pathological study in a small cohort of elderly persons with LLD and age-matched controls confirmed that lacunes, periventricular and deep white matter demyelination as well as AD-related lesions are usually unrelated to the occurrence of LLD. In the same line, neuropathological data show that early-onset depression is not associated with an acceleration of age-related neurodegenerative changes. Very recent data on the critical role of glia-modulating neuronal dysfunction and degeneration in depression are discussed.
HubMed – depression

 

Predicting Depression from Illness Severity in Cardiovascular Disease Patients: Self-efficacy Beliefs, Illness Perception, and Perceived Social Support as Mediators.

Filed under: Depression Treatment

Int J Behav Med. 2013 Jan 25;
Greco A, Steca P, Pozzi R, Monzani D, D’Addario M, Villani A, Rella V, Giglio A, Malfatto G, Parati G

BACKGROUND: Many studies have investigated the relationships between cardiovascular diseases and patients’ depression; nevertheless, few is still known as regard the impact of illness severity on depression and whether psychosocial variables mediate this association. PURPOSE: The aim of this study is to investigate the putative mediating role of illness representations, self-efficacy beliefs, and perceived social support on the relationship between illness severity and depression. METHODS: A total of 75 consecutive patients with cardiovascular disease (80 % men; mean age?=?65.44, SD?=?10.20) were enrolled in an Italian hospital. Illness severity was measured in terms of left ventricular ejection fraction, whereas psychological factors were assessed using self-report questionnaires. RESULTS: The relationship between left ventricular ejection fraction and depression was mediated by identity illness perception, self-efficacy beliefs in managing cardiac risk factors, and perceived social support. CONCLUSION: The treatment of depression in cardiovascular disease patients may therefore benefit from a psychological intervention focused on patients’ illness representations, self-efficacy beliefs, and their perceived social support.
HubMed – depression

 

The impact of short term synaptic depression and stochastic vesicle dynamics on neuronal variability.

Filed under: Depression Treatment

J Comput Neurosci. 2013 Jan 26;
Reich S, Rosenbaum R

Neuronal variability plays a central role in neural coding and impacts the dynamics of neuronal networks. Unreliability of synaptic transmission is a major source of neural variability: synaptic neurotransmitter vesicles are released probabilistically in response to presynaptic action potentials and are recovered stochastically in time. The dynamics of this process of vesicle release and recovery interacts with variability in the arrival times of presynaptic spikes to shape the variability of the postsynaptic response. We use continuous time Markov chain methods to analyze a model of short term synaptic depression with stochastic vesicle dynamics coupled with three different models of presynaptic spiking: one model in which the timing of presynaptic action potentials are modeled as a Poisson process, one in which action potentials occur more regularly than a Poisson process (sub-Poisson) and one in which action potentials occur more irregularly (super-Poisson). We use this analysis to investigate how variability in a presynaptic spike train is transformed by short term depression and stochastic vesicle dynamics to determine the variability of the postsynaptic response. We find that sub-Poisson presynaptic spiking increases the average rate at which vesicles are released, that the number of vesicles released over a time window is more variable for smaller time windows than larger time windows and that fast presynaptic spiking gives rise to Poisson-like variability of the postsynaptic response even when presynaptic spike times are non-Poisson. Our results complement and extend previously reported theoretical results and provide possible explanations for some trends observed in recorded data.
HubMed – depression

 

Depression Free! Holistic & Multimedia Self-treatment for Overcoming Depression Without Drugs
Depression Free presents a revolutionary holistic approach to self-treating depression, anxiety and Bi-polar Disorder, naturally, …

The Complete Depression Treatment and Homework Planner (PracticePlanners)
Utilizing the methodology of the bestselling PracticePlanners series, The Complete Depression Treatment and Homework Planner provi…

The Postpartum Husband: Practical Solutions for living with Postpartum Depression
This hands-on guide includes straightforward, supportive information and specific recommendations to help partners deal with the i…

More Depression Treatment Information…