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Diverse Tau Pathologies Identified in Late-Life Mood Disorders

Researchers in Japan used advanced PET radiotracers to detect dementia-related tau accumulations in nearly half of late-onset mood disorder patients, suggesting these symptoms may precede cognitive decline by more than seven years.

Study Finds Bipolar Disorder, Depression After 40 May Lead To Risk Of Dementia (Credits: Pexels)
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Overview

  • A team at the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology scanned 52 individuals with late-life depression or bipolar disorder and 47 healthy controls using PET imaging and validated findings through postmortem analysis.
  • Nearly 50 percent of patients with late-onset mood disorders showed elevated tau pathology in the frontal cortex, compared with about 15 percent of healthy participants.
  • Amyloid beta deposits were present in 29 percent of mood disorder cases versus just 2 percent of controls, linking these psychiatric symptoms to Alzheimer’s-associated processes.
  • Review of 208 autopsy cases confirmed that mood disturbances preceded observable cognitive or motor signs of dementia by an average of 7.3 years.
  • Authors recommend incorporating tau-PET scans into psychiatric evaluations to enable early deployment of disease-modifying treatments before irreversible neurodegenerative damage occurs.