Cerebrospinal Fluid Alzheimer Markers in Depressed Elderly Subjects with and without Alzheimer’s Disease

Depression Elderly Alzheimer’s disease Cerebrospinal fluid -Amyloid 1–24 Total tau Phosphorylated tau Background: The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between cerebrospinal fluid Alzheimer’s disease (AD) markers and depression in elderly people. Method: We included sub-jects with AD as well as persons with subjective cognitive impairment and normal cognition. Depression was assessed with the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia, and a cut-off score of 1 6 was used to define depression. Cerebrospinal fluid was analyzed using commercially available assays for -amyloid 1–42, total tau, and phosphorylated tau 181. Results: A total of 183 participants (66.7 % female) were included (92 with AD and 91 with subjective cognitive im-pairment), with a mean age ( 8 SD) of 67.6 8 7.4 years, a Mini-Mental State Examination score of 26.0 8 4.0, and a median Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia score of 5 (range 0–19). De-pression scores were not associated with higher phosphorylated tau 181 and total tau or re-duced -amyloid 1–42 in AD or non-demented subjects. Conclusions: These results suggest that AD pathology does not contribute to depression, indicating that other factors may be mor