Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Apr;30(4):393-9.
doi: 10.1002/gps.4149. Epub 2014 Jun 12.

Disassociation of verbal learning and hippocampal volume in type 2 diabetes and major depression

O Ajilore  1 , M Lamar, J Medina, K Watari, V Elderkin-Thompson, A Kumar
Affiliations

Disassociation of verbal learning and hippocampal volume in type 2 diabetes and major depression

O Ajilore et al. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2015 Apr.

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between verbal learning and memory performance and hippocampal volume in subjects with co-morbid type 2 diabetes and major depression compared with healthy control subjects and subjects with type 2 diabetes alone.

Methods: Twenty four subjects with type 2 diabetes and 20 subjects with type 2 diabetes and major depression were recruited from endocrinology clinics and were compared with 32 healthy control subjects recruited from the community. Subjects were scanned on a 1.5 T GE scanner, and hippocampal volumes were measured using Freesurfer. The California Verbal Learning Test assessed learning and memory. Significant predictors of verbal learning performance (e.g., age, gender, education, blood pressure, stroke risk, hemoglobin A1c, and hippocampal volume) were determined using a stepwise linear regression.

Results: Subjects with diabetes and depression had significantly worse performance on verbal list learning compared with healthy control subjects. Hippocampal volume was a strong predictor of performance in healthy control subjects, and age and hippocampal volume were strong predictors in subjects with type 2 diabetes alone. Age alone was a significant predictor of verbal learning performance in subjects with diabetes and depression.

Conclusions: The relationship between hippocampal volume and performance on the California Verbal Learning Test is decoupled in subjects with type 2 diabetes and major depression and this decoupling may contribute to poor verbal learning and memory performance in this study population.

Keywords: Diabetes; cognition; depression; hippocampus; medical co-morbidities.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
CVLT performance by group: Diabetic depressed subjects had significantly poorer performance compared to healthy control subjects (F = 5.16, p = .008; pairwise comparisons are indicated in the figure). Diabetic non-depressed subjects also did poorly compared to healthy control subjects, but they did not significantly differ with either healthy control subjects or diabetic depressed subjects.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Hippocampal volume by group. There was no significant difference in hippocampal volumes (F = 1.613, p = .205)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Aarts S, van den Akker M, van Boxtel MP, Jolles J, Winkens B, Metsemakers JF. Diabetes mellitus type II as a risk factor for depression: a lower than expected risk in a general practice setting. Eur J Epidemiol. 2009;24:641–648. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ajilore O, Haroon E, Kumaran S, Darwin C, Binesh N, Mintz J, Miller J, Thomas MA, Kumar A. Measurement of brain metabolites in patients with type 2 diabetes and major depression using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2007;32:1224–1231. - PubMed
    1. Ajilore O, Narr K, Rosenthal J, Pham D, Hamilton L, Watari K, Elderkin-Thompson V, Darwin C, Toga A, Kumar A. Regional cortical gray matter thickness differences associated with type 2 diabetes and major depression. Psychiatry Res. 2010;184:63–70. - PMC - PubMed
    1. American Heart Association . Stroke risk prediction chart [Derived from the Framingham Heart Study, sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health] American Heart Association; Dallas: 1990.
    1. Ballmaier M, Narr KL, Toga AW, Elderkin-Thompson V, Thompson PM, Hamilton L, Haroon E, Pham D, Heinz A, Kumar A. Hippocampal morphology and distinguishing late-onset from early-onset elderly depression. Am J Psychiatry. 2008;165:229–237. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources