A longitudinal analysis of depressive symptoms in relation to repeated measurements of regional tau

Depressive symptoms are commonly observed early in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but their temporal association with progression along the AD continuum is less clear. We sought to determine if initial measurements of regional tau were predictive of increasing depressive symptoms, and if changes in depressive symptoms predicted later tau levels. We examined these relationships in a region of early tau accumulation (i.e., entorhinal cortex (EC)), and in regions of later neocortical tau spread commonly involved in affective regulation (amygdala and medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC, lOFC)).