[Neuropsychological and neuropathological interactions in affective and cognitive geriatric syndromes]

Abstract

This paper reviews recent empirical findings related to depressive moods and cognitive functions in elderly persons. Vascular depression and major depression in Alzheimer disease (AD) are particularly common among elderly persons and, therefore, are discussed in light of the interactions among the cognitive deficits, the depressed moods and the neuropathologies. Functional imaging studies with depressed patients in several therapeutic or cognitive challenges have revealed that depression may involve impaired reciprocal interactions among the several important cognitive brain areas such as the hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Such impairment may be produced by the small ischemic changes in the subcortical areas of the frontal cortex in vascular depression and by the particular neurodegenerative processes in major depression in AD.